Basketball: Greece happy to be outsiders

SAITAMA, Japan - Greece fired a warning to the United States before tonight's semifinal at the world basketball championship: "Write us off at your peril."

Greece have no current NBA players and Carmelo Anthony's throw-away joke that the Greek names were too long left no doubt the US were not too concerned about their opponents.

However, Greece are more than happy to go into their semifinal as rank outsiders.

"It's good like this," smiled Greek guard Theodoros Papaloukas.

"If things go wrong for them in the game they will get stressed."

Greece are the current European champions and their blue-collar style of basketball has earned the respect of US coach Mike Krzyzewski.

"Our team won't look past Greece," he said.

"They play defence about as well as anybody in the world - they are a championship team."

Greece have come through the championship in Japan with an unblemished 7-0 record, like the US and the teams in today's other semifinal, Argentina and Spain.

"Greece are a team who have been together for a long time," US forward LeBron James said.

"We will have to have a defensive mindset for 40 minutes. We'll have to bring our A-plus game."

Greece's pressurising zone defence has been the key to their success in Japan and they will look to prevent a high-energy US team from turning Friday's game into a run-and-gun affair.

"You do not want an open-court game with the US because then it's easy for them," said Greece coach Panagiotis Yannakis.

"I'm proud of this team already. There are no egos here. I'm happy to be in the semifinals and I am hoping for more happiness in the next days."

Greece's defence came up trumps in Wednesday's 73-56 quarter-final victory over France and Sofoklis Schortsanitis predicted another big effort on Friday.

"We have to beat the Americans to win a medal," said the muscle-bound forward dubbed 'Baby Shaq.'

"So we will have to bring down the lights."

- REUTERS