Beijing: Team USA has its eyes on a semi-final match up against reigning Olympic champion Argentina on Friday, a formidable hurdle in its quest to bring basketball gold back to the nation that invented the game.
The US team of high profile superstars led by Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony will be looking to revenge an Athens 2004 semi-final loss to Argentina, led by Manu Ginobili and a group of fellow NBA players.
"We want to play the best. We want to play the defending champions," Bryant said after the US reached the final four by knocking off Australia 116-85 late on Wednesday.
"Anyone who has aspirations to be a champion, you understand there is a sense of pride that comes along with beating a champion."
US players were brimming with confidence that they could beat the South Americans and recapture the gold, but failure at Athens and dismal performances at the 2002 and 2006 world championships were clearly on their minds.
"We all want Argentina. We all want revenge on that (Athens) game. That's the game that we want to have," said power forward Carlos Boozer.
Despite winning all six of its Olympic basketball games by an average of about 32 points, the Americans were careful not to get too overconfident as has been the case in their recent international forays.
"If we don't approach every game like it's our last, we can be beat," Cleveland Cavalier and current NBA scoring champion LeBron James said.
"If we don't come into it and offensively make the extra pass or defensively we don't help each other and we start converting back to individuals, we can lose."
Argentina, which scraped past European power Greece 80-78 Wednesday in the most thrilling match of the Olympic tournament so far, said they would take it to the Americans, but admitted that the US was still at the top of the heap.
"They are the best team in the tournament," San Antonio Spur Fabricio Oberto said.
"The time we played them in Athens, we entered as we are going to enter now, with all of our strengths. I broke my finger in that match. If they tell me that we are going to win the gold again, I would break my finger again."
Oberto's fellow Spur Ginobili, the leading scorer in the Olympic tournament, said his team had "not much of a chance" to beat the American superstars.
But "we have the experience, we know how to play these kinds of matches," said Chicago Bull forward Andres Nocioni.
The United States has won a record 12 Olympic basketball titles and currently enjoys a 120 win and five loss all-time Games record.
In the second semi-final, reigning world champion Spain, who beat Croatia 72-59 in a Wednesday quarter-final, will meet Sydney bronze medalist Lithuania who advanced by knocking off host China 94-68.
"We played against Spain a lot of times, we know that Spain is a very strong team, we have a lot of respect for them," Lithuanian coach Ramunas Butautas said.
"But we will fight and we will be prepared, the game will show who is stronger."
Lithuania is led by fiery point guard Sarunas Jasikevicius, formerly of the Golden State Warriors, but currently with Panthinaikos of Greece and Linas Kleiza of the Denver Nuggets.
The long-time European power has been playing without NBA players Darius Songailia and Zydrunas Ilgauskas, both who are nursing injuries and did not come to Beijing.
"We are where we want to be, but the semis are going to be a difficult game for us," Los Angeles Laker Pau Gasol, who is leading Spain in scoring and rebounding, said.
"We still have two games left to play. We need to be intense from the start."
Worryingly for Spain, is a groin injury to Toronto Raptor point guard Jose Calderon who hobbled off in the fourth quarter of the Croatia game and did not return.
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