INDIANAPOLIS -- United States: toppled. Title game: reached.

	Divac

Vlade Divac and Yugoslavia have achieved everything Divac said they could so far, save one minor detail: Enjoy it.

The Yugos haven't come close there, most of all Divac. He's generally a jovial giant, but not lately. Not even with his country on the brink of a fifth world championship, and his famed U.S. hosts playing for fifth place. And losing.

After leading the second-half comeback in an 89-78 victory over gutty New Zealand, the Sacramento Kings' Divac looked as spent Saturday as he did after that fateful Game 7 against the Lakers last June. He never wanted to unretire from international basketball and can't wait to re-retire -- no matter what happens in Sunday's gold-medal game against Argentina -- after two weeks of draining behind-the-scenes politics.

"I don't think I'm going to play again for the national team," Divac said Saturday. "It's not like I thought it was going to be."

Divac actually reached that conclusion long before Saturday's scenes, which featured teammate Vladimir Radmanovic of the Seattle SuperSonics watching the entire second half from the stands. Radmanovic was banished from the Yugoslavia bench after a halftime spat with his coach, Svetislav Pesic, to give these wacky Worlds yet another spectacle no one saw coming.

Pressure back home from passionate Serbs and the chance to beat the Yanks on U.S. soil are cited as the two forces most responsible for convincing Divac, 34, to rescind the retirement vow he issued after Yugoslavia won the European Championship in 1999.

The other, unspoken reason: Divac was actually begged back by teammates and friends who hoped he could keep peace in a lockerroom more volatile than anyone envisioned.

Radmanovic and Pesic -- a screamer who makes Bob Knight seem hushed -- have clashed repeatedly over playing time, largely because Radmanovic doesn't get much. Peja Drobnjak, the other SuperSonic on the team, doesn't get much more time, with Pesic apparently determined to prove that Yugoslavia's non-NBA players are as good as the NBAers.

Radmanovic's crime Saturday, after logging zero minutes in the first half, was apparently eating a banana on the way back to the locker room. Definitely not what Pesic wanted to see, with Yugoslavia stunningly trailing by nine to a New Zealand team missing Sean Marks, its only NBA name.

An argument ensued at intermission (again, not their first here) and Radmanovic was told to head for Section 16, adjacent to the press seats at Conseco Fieldhouse. While Yugoslavia was wiping away the deficit with some smothering defense and eight third-quarter points in eight minutes from Divac, Radmanovic posed for pictures with fans. He signed autographs on shirts and tickets.

At the peak of Yugoslavia's comeback in the fourth quarter, he pulled out his mobile phone to take a call.

And that's only one story in a tournament where the co-favorites from Yugoslavia plunged into turmoil with early losses to Spain and Puerto Rico. For instance, Pesic refused to include Divac and Peja Stojakovic in his starting lineup until after those two defeats.

Quickly becoming legend, meanwhile, is the bus trip back to the hotel after one defeat, during which Pesic and players volleyed Serbian expletives back and forth. When the bus pulled to a stop light, the story goes, a security guard asked off the bus, unable to take any more noise.

Divac, too, says he has reached his limit.

Even with a berth in the 2004 Summer Games in Athens at stake Sunday, and even with Argentina sure to be weakened if Emanuel Ginobili can't recover from twisting his ankle against Germany, Divac waved off talk of one last run at Olympic gold at the age of 36.

"I just told some Yugoslavian journalists, why do things the simple way when you can do them the hard way?" Divac said, finally addressing his frustration after passing on two earlier questions.

"We choose to go the hard way."

Marc Stein is a senior writer for ESPN.com.