We have 2 semifinals today in Men's Olympic basketball competition but looks like betting is already over on this tournament because lines looks pretty strong and it's very hard to get any advantage over them to place a bet. I will review both semifinals anyway but will stay away from providing any official picks.

Should be a great match. 2 teams with high scoring offenses and many great players. Line set correctly in my opinion because it almost the same I have expected to see. I would set -7.5 handicap for Spain if both teams will play at 100% without any surprises and injuries. But recent news and some problems with Spain game moved line down to 6 points. The main reasons of this are Calderon injury (he may miss this game) and not-confident game of Spain. For me this year Spain basketball team version looks weaker than last year. They have the same roster and many of the players did a great progress during a year but they lost something with Pepu Hernandez departure. I can't tell you what exactly they are missing but their game is not so confident as it was on Eurobasket'07 and World Champs'06. Maybe team chemistry is not on the same level because of new coach tactics which many players can't addapt or something else but things looks different in Spain.

But on other side Spain is still best European team with superbalanced and supertalented roster. They know each other very well, they have better defense than lithuanians, they have better winning mentality and they have less weak places than Lithuania.

Lithuania looks like a good team but they are unpredictable in such games like this. They have only one point guards in Jasikevicius face and if Spain will turn off him from the game by pressing him full court or cutting him from the ball Lithuania will be in a problem. Lithuanian offense was great so far but they never have played against iron-type defense like Spain has. Spain have better h-2-h record with last loss to Lithuania dating back to 2003 Eurobasket campaign when Lithuania beat them in the final. In my opinion Lithuanian 2nd role players are missing sometimes while some important persons like Kaukenas or K.Lavrinovic are not at their best conditions comparing to their real abilities.

Tacticaly Spain has much more opportunities to stop Lithuanian offense but I think that outcome of this game will be decided on psychological level. If Lithuania will be confident in theirselves and will believe that they can beat Spain than I see 50/50 game. If Lithuanian players will allow Spain to dictate their will than bookmakers line shows the possible outcome of the game. So summarizing I can say that some value is on Lithuania win market but Spain is absolute favorite of this game.

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