ISTANBUL (2010 FIBA World Championship) - Europe already has two sides in the Semi-Finals of the FIBA World Championship in Serbia and hosts Turkey.

Now two teams that needed wild cards to play at the event - Russia and Lithuania – will try to join them by upsetting Team USA and Argentina.

Russia, one of the best and most physical defensive teams in the competition, are on court first against Team USA, available live on FIBATV.com.

The last time these two countries met in a FIBA World Championship was 1998, the year the NBA lockout prevented America's first-choice squad from travelling to Greece.

Instead, a squad that had several European-based players made it to the last four and had one foot in the title game when Russia fought back from a big deficit in the final two minutes to capture an unlikely win.

Russia’s 6ft 8in Sergey Panov dribbled the ball the length of the floor and made a game-winning lay-up right before the final buzzer to give the Russians a 66-64 victory.

They followed that up, however, with a 64-62 defeat to Yugoslavia in the gold-medal game.

There was, thankfully, no NBA lockout before the 2010 FIBA World Championship but the Americans' first-choice team nevertheless didn't make the trip to Istanbul.

Free agency, injuries and other issues prevented players like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant and Chris Bosh from competing this summer.

USA Basketball had a contingency plan in place.

Since the arrival of Jerry Colangelo, the emphasis has been on having a squad of players to choose from should some stars be unable to take part in a major event. Therefore, all the USA have had to do was bring others in the USA national team squad for 2010-12, including some that had already been working out in the national team program in recent years before like Andre Iguodala - a starter in this year's team.

On the evidence of their six wins in as many games in Istanbul, this squad is going to be tough to beat.

Every time Russia have run onto the floor in Turkey this summer, they have hard games and it's come as no surprise to the coach.

"We can't score," Russia coach David Blatt said to FIBA.com.

So what will they do against the United States?

"We're going to try and 'uglify' the game," added USA-born Blatt, a long-time citizen of Israel.

If this year has shown anything, it's that Blatt, who guided Russia to a surprise gold medal at EuroBasket 2007 in Madrid, remains one of the great coaches in the international game.

This Russian team is without the face of basketball in the country, the oft-injured Utah Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko. CSKA Moscow's naturalized point guard JR Holden is also no longer in the mix and nor, it appears, is Viktor Khryapa.

The CSKA Moscow superstar has been bothered by injuries but was included in the squad, yet Blatt hasn't been allowed to play him with Khryapa's club side not giving the green light.

Blatt's hands have been tied, yet he was able to guide the team to a 4-1 record in Group C and a second-place finish behind Turkey, and an Eight-Final triumph over New Zealand.

Most people would guess that Team USA would be Russia's hardest game to date, but that wouldn't necessarily be true.

Turkey have been playing like a runaway train at this FIBA World Championship and Russia did very well against them, only losing 65-56 - albeit after a Sergey Monya three-ball for Blatt's team at the death.

Russia had managed to close the gap to seven points earlier in the fourth quarter.

The United States have a squad loaded with talent and unlike offensively-challenged Russia, have plenty of players that can put the ball in the hoop.

Mike Krzyzewski, the USA coach, has the NBA's leading scorer in his team from last season, Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant.

There is also the NBA champion of the Los Angeles Lakers, Lamar Odom.

Krzyzewski has a former NBA champion in Chauncey Billups of Denver. Billups is the captain of the USA and probably the most physical of the USA guards although Chicago Bulls playmaker Derrick Rose says he's not shy of contact, either.

One thing the Russians have is size in their backcourt, but Rose isn't worried about that.

Rose said: "Usually, people that are 6-8 – unless you’re LeBron (James) or somebody – can’t run as fast as I can.”

When asked how he’d approach the challenge, Rose answered: “Beating them to spots, rough them up a little bit, let them know that I’m there."

Odom is also not afraid of a physical game.

"We’ll use our quickness, speed, strength, agility, everything we got to try to win the basketball game," he said.

"Play as physical as possible … just play our game."

The United States would never admit it, but this is a David v Goliath match-up and it will make for very interesting viewing.

The second Quarter-Final is between an undefeated Lithuania and a very experienced and dangerous Argentina, also available live on FIBATV.com.

It's a rematch of the bronze-medal game at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, though key players are missing from both of those sides.

Sarunas Jasikevicius and Ramunas Siskauskas were leaders for Lithuania in 2008 while Andres Nocioni played for Argentina. Manu Ginobili didn't play in the third-place game in Beijing because of an injury he picked up in the Semi-Final defeat to the United States.

Lithuania won all of their Group D clashes but didn't look to be at their best in the Eight-Finals against China, who trailed by just five points in the first quarter before losing, 78-67.

Without Linas Kleiza's 30 points, the Lithuanians wouldn't have overcome the Chinese.

Argentina played the second Eight-Final on Tuesday night and beat their South American brothers Brazil in one of the great games of the history of the FIBA World Championship, 93-89.

Luis Scola carried Argentina on his back by scoring 37 points and pulling down nine rebounds, with Carlos Delfino and Hernan Jasen also hitting key shots to overcome the Marcelo Huertas-led Brazlians.

"Every tournament we play against Lithuania at some point," Argentina center Fabricio Oberto said.

"We know it's going to be a tough match. They're really big, a young team now and we have to keep playing hard as we played against Brazil."

FIBA