GRE - Papaloukas: "This is when the real tournament starts"

SAITAMA (FIBA World Championship) - Greece have followed up their dramatic run to the EuroBasket gold medal in 2005 to a semi-final place at the FIBA World Championship.

On Wednesday, Dimitris Diamantidis had 13 points, eight rebounds, five assists and two steals and both Lazaros Papadopoulos and Antonis Fotsis scored 14 apiece to lead the Greeks past France 73-56.

Next up is either Team USA or Germany.

Theo Papaloukas is familiar with both, having faced the Americans in Athens and Germany last year in the gold medal game at the EuroBasket.

He spoke to FIBA after the victory over France.

FIBA: Theo, great game. What are your immediate thoughts on reaching the semi-finals?

Papaloukas: "This is when the real tournament starts."

FIBA: Greece, even with Nikos Zisis out of the tournament with the broken bones in his face suffered against Brazil, look like such a confident team and it doesn't matter who you are going up against. Can you talk about your team?

Papaloukas: "We know what we can do well and we did (against France). We can play great defense, (Dimitris) Diamantidis and (Lazaros) Papadopoulos played great on offense. They led, and I think we deserved to go to the semi-finals. I think we are one of the most stable teams in the tournament. We are one of the teams that has big faith in the team."

FIBA: Repeat it again for us, Theo. What can we expect to get out of Greece in every game?

Papaloukas: "You'll always see good defense, and someone is going to take the ball and lead you on offense."

FIBA: You beat France last year in that thrilling EuroBasket semi-final and here you were one year later playing them again. What did you think of their FIBA World Championship?

Papaloukas: "France have had a good tournament but, in the big games, (Tony) Parker is a big loss. When you lose the guy who moves the ball on offense, but I'm not sure even if Parker was here that they would have been successful this year."
(Parker broke a finger in the build-up to the tournament).

FIBA: Greece did the little things tonight like calling that timeout with 0.9 seconds remaining in the third quarter to set up an inbounds play and it paid off with Fotsis hitting the jump shot for a 53-43 lead. How crucial was that play?

Papaloukas: "It was a nice moment, but more important, you need the overall quality of basketball and you also need luck."

FIBA: Are we going to see anything different from Greece in the semi-final, no matter who the opponents are - Germany or the United States?

Papaloukas: "You may even see something better than what we've done so far. We're going to try and play strong, great defense. "

FIBA: Greece played the United States very tough at the Athens Olympics. Does this give you extra belief if that is the team you play in the next game?

Papaloukas: "We don't have to prove anything. We're here. If they beat us over 40 minutes, I'm going to say "congratulations, you played better."

By Jeff Taylor
FIBA