Russia were one of the surprise outfits of the preliminary round of the 2007 EuroBasket, coming out of Group A unscathed with wins against Serbia, Israel and the defending champions Greece.

Now only Portugal, world champions Spain and Croatia stand in the Russian’s path to the quarter-finals.

A big key for the charge of David Blatt’s men thus far has been their defense as they allowed only 58 points per game. Another reason has been their ability to win the battle of the boards in each game, including a 10-rebound advantage against both Israel and Greece.

"Our keys have been defense and rebounding,” said Russian point guard J.R Holden. “If you have guys like (Andrei) Kirilenko (2.09m), (Victor) Khryapa (2.03m) and (Sergey) Monya (2.05m), who are so long and athletic, you can block shots and rebound and really not have two centers playing or a natural forward.

		Holden believes Russia do a good job of using Kirilenko's athleticism

“I mean we have Kirilenko playing power forward for us. So not having a big four-man but having someone long and athletic like him just enables us to get out and run and exploit some of the mis-matches which help us.”

Russia handcuffed both Serbia and Israel into shooting only 33% from the field and then allowed Greece to hit just 38% of their shots while forcing an average of 15 turnovers per game.

And Holden believes the team has a completely new approach on the court since Blatt's arrival.

"He gives us a lot of freedom. He likes to play up-tempo but he's a coach that stresses tough defense. He's the kind of guy who, as long as you play tough defense, you can have fun on offense," explained the American-born playmaker.

"Of course we want to cut down on our turnovers (12 per game) but, outside of that, he's pretty aggressive and I think he's one of the best coaches who I've played for."

After collecting three straight wins, Russia look on course to improve on their recent struggles in Europe.

While they have reached the quarter-finals in each tournament since 1993, their last medal was bronze back in 1997. And they have finished only eighth in each of the last two competitions.

"We're happy but you can never be too satisfied because it's so early,” warned Holden.

“Everybody knows this tournament is so long. These next two games will be extremely important for us – definitely Portugal. That's a must-win for us and that will put us one step closer to our goal of getting to the quarter-finals and that would be a big step for us."

And the guard refused to look too far ahead – a cautious approach he attributes to his coach.

"We just have to take it one game at a time. One of the things coach Blatt said was we don't want to look at being top eight or top 10 or even the top three or four. But let's just approach each game as our championship game and we've been doing a good job at that," Holden added.