Coming to Granada Russia's ambition was to qualify to the next round with a good result, but step by step their hunger got bigger.

Tonight they finally feel full, at least for the next 48 hours, after beating the champs from Greece 61-53.

		Papaloukas and Greece struggled to get their offense going.

Russia won Group A with a perfect record, and will carry two wins to the next round in Madrid, while Greece lost their first game in EuroBasket since 2003, and will have to work harder to qualify to the quarter-finals.

"We shot 58% from on free throws and only 38% from the field and that's not enough," confessed coach Panagiotis Yannakis of Greece, telling the story of the game from the Greek side.

Russia took control on the game from the very start, took the first lead and after one quarter already looked down at Greece, 15-8.

Andrei Kirilenko, who grabbed 17 boards tonight, collected seven of them in that stretch.

"Our objective was to up tempo the game. We did that in the first game, but for the last two and a half quarters Greece set the tempo. We had to make a great defensive effort to win the game," analyzed the winning coach, David Blatt, after the game.

Russia's margin already climbed to double-digits, but Greece showed they don't plan on giving up the game.

A couple of three-pointers by Mikhalis Kakiouzis and Nikos Zisis, helped coach Yannakis walk to the locker room down by only three points, 25-22 behind a big first half by Victor Khryapa who collected 11 points and five rebounds by then.

Zisis and then Theodoros Papaloukas put Greece on top for the first time in the game early in the second half, but then Russia showed their back court power when J.R. Holden warmed his hand and Zakhar Pashutin nailed two big downtown aces.

With ten minutes to play Russia held a 44-38 lead, and Greece started to look nervous.

It took almost three minutes until the first points of the last quarter arrived, but the momentum stayed on the Russian side.

When Vasillis Spanoulis slashed to the rim with 6:13 to play he was about to cut the margin to three, but Kirilenko was there at the right time and place to show who owns the court tonight.

With a big block he sent Spanoulis to the floor and pushed Russia forward.

Holden connected on five points in a row, and Kirilenko made it a nine point game, 54-45, with less than five minutes to play.

"When we opened a 10 point lead in such game, it's like 25 in another game," said Blatt, explaining the last minutes.

That margin was enough to topple the Greek giant, who never came close to threaten the Russian lead until the final buzzer.

Russia

Coach David Blatt: "It's always special when you beat a team as great as Greece and a EuroBasket champion. That being said the key for this tournament isn't to win early, but winning late. It's to win early but then know how to win the late games. Obviously it's important, but we need to prove ourselves also in Madrid and not only in Granada. Our objective was to raise the tempo the game. We did that in the first game. For the last two and a half quarters Greece set the tempo, but we made a great defensive effort. We made some stops that broke the game and when we opened a 10-point lead in such a game, it's like 25."

Nikita Morgunov: "Today it was a very important game. Now we need to think about the next game because this game is already in the past and we need to think about the future."

Victor Khryapa: "We played against a very good team, but we showed a lot of passion on defense and we managed to control the tempo of the game. That was the key for our win tonight, and what happened tonight made us a real unit. Now we are a real team and we have to thank our coach David Blatt for this."

Greece

Coach Pannagiotis Yannakis: "Congratulations to Russia. They played very good. It was a very nervous game. We missed a lot of shots. We missed a lot of open shots and made some easy mistakes. They controlled the game when we came back. We saw that we can do it, but then didn't have the patience. The tournament is very long and it depends how we will control our feelings and our game after the loss. We tried some things that didn't work out. Maybe we were a little bit tired. The opponent gave us a lot of problems. We shot 58% from the free-throw line and only 38% from the field and that's not enough. We'll try in the next games to play better."

Nikolas Zisis: "It was a very hard game. Both teams played very well on defense. On offense it was a slow tempo game. Russia deserved to win. They played better than us. We need to play much better if we want to try to do the same things that we did in the last few years. It's good to have a day off. We'll start to win the next game. We don't play good basketball until now. We can't hide behind reasons like pressure. Last year in Japan in the first games it was also the same. We must play much better now. When you get 61 points usually you must win games."

Kostas Tsartsaris: "We have time to play better. We scored in last two games very few points and this is the biggest problem of the team. The game in the last year is faster and we play slow. Tomorrow we'll see what we have done wrong, and try to fix it."

Mikhalis Kakiouzis: "We didn't play the game that we wanted. If we scored some free shots I think we had a better chance to play. Nobody has contracts with the wins. I don't think we are not hungry anymore. We want more than anyone in Greece to win again something. For us the EuroBasket 2005 and MundoBasket is history."

At first sight, it seems these teams should enter this game calm after they both secured their places in the next round with two wins in two days. However, that’s not their approach to this game.

In fact both teams will see this as a must-win situation because it will earn them the top spot in the group and a nice advantage in the next round.

Greece came closer to losing their first two games – against Israel and Serbia - than they would have liked to. At the moment, they look like the title-holders are struggling to find their EuroBasket 2007 pace, while Russia are riding their great momentum, displaying some fine team defense while being well-coached by David Blatt.

		Holden has an interesting battle with Papaloukas

With a win, Russia will blossom, and word might start to spread that they are a team that can bring home a medal. Greece would like to put their two average displays over the past couple of days behind them and put on a good performance – which would result in a win of course - before the next round.

Last Time Out: Greece worked very hard and wasted a lot of energy to overcome Serbia 68-67 in overtime yesterday, while Russia cruised to a comfortable 90-56 win over Israel in the group’s earlier game.

Head-to-Head: Two years ago in Belgrade, these two teams met in the quarter-finals. Greece won a close game 66-61 behind 23 points from Theodoros Papaloukas, while Andrei Kirilenko had a huge double-double of 20 points and 16 rebounds for Russia.

Key Match-up: Papaloukas and J.R. Holden share the backcourt at club level for CSKA Moscow during the season. Sometimes they take it in turn to take the point guard duties. Here they go head-to-head but each has a different role in his team due to their different abilities. While Papaloukas sometimes come off the bench and hasn’t played over 30 minutes so far, Holden is a starter who rarely sits out. He is an out of control shooter, while Papaloukas is always on top of things. So different but each player is a key man for his team. Keep an eye on which CSKA guard will excel and, as a consequence maybe prevail, in this match-up.

Statistics: Both Greece and Russia did a very taking care of the ball over the first two days. Greece lead the tournament so far with the fewest turnovers per game (8.5) while Serbia is fourth with only 11 turnovers on average over its first two encounters. It will be interesting to see how Russia react to the Greek pressure defense that so far has resulted in the champions also leading the competition in the steals category with 10 per game.

X-Factor: Greece’s team defense as a whole is the x-factor of this game. Kirilenko is shinning in every game and it seems there’s no one in particular that can guard him among Pannagiotis Yannakis’ squad. Some are too short, others are too slow. AK47 does so many things on the court that eliminating his points would probably not be enough, but if the defending champions - as a team - manage to frustrate him for a change, Russia will struggle.

What It Means: The winners will finish top of the group but a win weighs much more than that. Both teams will carry the results to the next round. Arriving there with a 2-0 mark will obviously make life much easier than a 1-1 record would. But it’s even bigger than that: the winners will enter the next stage also with a tie-breaker advantage, making it almost impossible for the losing side to pass them being both behind in the wins column and in the tie-breaker.