"He said we must play the game," Iourkov said. "He said he would try to do everything for the best of our team, but after 15 minutes of play you could see that it is all very strange. After the game, in the hall, I talked to the president of Olympiakos and asked him what about the idea of us playing the game again when we are healthy, but he said, 'I don't know about that, I don't know.' It is bull. If you want to do something, you do it."
Asked if he believed that Olympiakos was responsible for what FIBA is now calling a poisoning, Iourkov said: "I think it's not a good question. We cannot answer that officially. But you think, who has the most interest in this result, in this situation, in going to the Final Four? The answer is all of Greece, maybe. All of Greece wants the result that Olympiakos goes onto the finals."
Of course the Greeks wanted their team to win. They wanted it so badly they couldn't see that the best thing for them to do was to demand that the game not be played at all. That doesn't necessarily mean they poisoned the opposition.
No one doubts that the players were sick. The forward Sergei Panov, speaking by telephone from Moscow this week, said that only players - and not other members of the team - fell ill following a team dinner in Athens after the second game. He and two other players had to be hospitalized the day before the game because of intense headaches and violent convulsions.
A Greek laboratory tested the blood and urine of two of the players hospitalized and found no toxic substances. The Russians, who brought home bottles of mineral water and Gatorade from their locker room in Athens, said that their tests showed traces of strychnine and haloperidol, a drug used to combat hallucinations and delirium.
FIBA has yet to receive a report from the Russian federation, which only damages Moscow's insistence on seeking justice.
"I do not accept that the Greeks can be blamed," said Stankovic. "Unfortunately, there is no evidence that would allow us to blame the whole thing on anybody."
Olympiakos should win the final Thursday night. The team is strong and deep up front, creating room on the perimeter for the American star Eddie Johnson, whose shooting bailed out Olympiakos, 58-52, in Tuesday night's semifinal against national rival Panathinaikos.
Real Madrid revolves around its gigantic and currently dedicated center, Arvidas Sabonis, with the orbit plotted by Zelimir Obradovic, the brilliant Serb coach who can win his third European championship at 35. But if he does, it likely will come at the invitation of the frenzied Greek fans who heap such suffocating pressure on their players.
In June, the European Championship for national teams will be held in the rabid basketball environment of Athens, that environment having cast the worst suspicions on Greek basketball.
The tournament will serve as the final qualifying round for the 1996 Olympics, and every visiting team will remember what happened the last time someone tried to beat the Greeks. Indeed, the Russian team may include five players from CSKA Moscow.
Among FIBA officials, there is a sense that no one wants to upset the Greek federation, although this does Greece no favors. Better that the game hadn't been played, but it was. What made the Russian players ill is almost irrelevant now, when the question is: What is to stop anyone in any country from poisoning an entire visiting team? This is the larger issue hovering over a championship that should be the dawning of Greece's brightest day.