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Silver or bronze will do for Lithuania

Click the image to launch the clip It's a foregone conclusion that the U.S. will claim the gold, but it'll be a dogfight for silver. Start Archives Click here for Archives of Olympic Update.

While the gold medal in basketball is widely acknowledged as a forgone conclusion, other teams are left to battle it out for the two remaining medals. Lithuania, which took bronze in both Barcelona and Atlanta, will have to make their run without injured American NBA players Arvydas Sabonis and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Still, without the big stars, the Lithuanians realize their progression to the later stages will be determined by how they do against the lesser teams.

"It is not really that important how we will play against the Dream Team," says Lithuanian guard Sarunas Jasikevicius. "Now it's much more important for us to win the games against Italy and France. And then we'll see what will happen against the Dream Team."

Lithuania will be in the same qualifying group as China, France, Italy, New Zealand and the mighty U.S. team. It's unlikely that this team could take gold, but if they manage to take silver, then this bunch of players will become national heroes in Lithuania.

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