Serbia's Milos Teodosic
Serbia's Milos Teodosic (R) goes up for a basket over Czech Republic's Petr Benda during their EuroBasket 2015 quarter-final game at the Pierre Mauroy stadium in Villeneuve d'Ascq, near Lille, France, September 16, 2015. Reuters/Benoit Tessier

Lithuania faces Serbia in the semifinals of the 2015 Eurobasket on Friday (early Saturday morning in Australia) with hopes that they can return to the championship round after landing in the FIBA Europe basketball championships in second place two years ago.

The winner of the Lithuania vs. Serbia match-up will not only advance to the final but will also notch an Olympic spot like Spain, which beat France in overtime, 80-75 in the other semifinal.

Serbia, which won the silver medal in this event in 2009 and the only undefeated team in the current tournament, easily survived Czech Republic’s challenge in the quarterfinals winning 89-75 to advance to the final four. In the group stages, the Serbians beat Spain (80-70), Germany (68-66), Iceland (93-64), Turkey (91-72) and Italy (101-82) and then won in the knockout game against Finland, 94-81.

Lithuania, which fell to France in the 2013 Eurobasket’s championship round, defeated Ukraine (69-68), Latvia (68-49), Estonia (64-62), Czech Republic (85-81) but lost to Belgium (76-74) in the preliminary stage. In the knockout stage, the Lithuanians beat Georgia (85-81) in the round of 16 and Italy (95-85) in the quarterfinals.

Serbia’s top scorer in this tournament is Nemanja Bjelica, who is currently under contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves in the NBA. The forward averages 14.7 points, 7.1 rebounds and 2.7 assists in the 2015 Eurobasket. Other key players for Serbia include centre Miroslav Raduljica (14.4 points and 4.7 rebounds) and veteran point guard Milos Teodesic (12.4 points and 8.3 assists).

"They are playing a lot of pick-and-roll. They have a lot of the same things as from CSKA (Moscow). They really play well as a team," Teoesic said in the tournament's official website.

For Lithuania, the team leaders in this tournament are forward Jonas Maciulis, who averages 15.3 points and 6.7 rebounds per game and centre Jonas Valanciunas of the Toronto Raptors who averages 17.2 points and 9.2 rebounds.

Serbia is the highest scoring team in the 2015 Eurobasket at 88.0 points per game while Lithuania allows just 71.5 point per game, which makes them the best defensive team among the survivors in the tournament.

Watch the 2015 FIBA Europe semifinals Serbia vs Lithuania live streaming via livebasketball.tv.

Contact the writer at feedback@ibtimes.com.au, or let us know what you think below.

RELATED STORIES