It’s All Greek to U.S. : Basketball: Russia falls, 111-94, and Greece promises to rest its three top players against Americans today.

America meets Greece today in the World Championship semifinals.

Tune in and watch the splash.

The Greeks played their best three players sparingly during Friday’s 81-55 loss to Croatia and promised to do the same thing against the United States, which dropped Russia, 111-94, in the second game before 27,083 in Skydome.

The Greeks are resting for the next day they think they have a chance to win, Sunday’s (presumed) bronze medal game against the Russia-Croatia loser.

Such behavior, often called tanking, would be scandalous in the United States but is commonplace in international play, which is why the Greeks happily admitted it.

“The players are very hard fighters,” said Greek Coach Makos Dendrinos. “The players and the public saw before the tournament started that the final would be between Croatia and the U.S.A.

“We see a more realistic goal on Sunday (the bronze medal) that we are trying to achieve. We are going to enjoy (today’s) game and we’ll be giving everything we have on Sunday.”

That will be a welcome relief. Meanwhile, no one is getting upset. FIBA head Boris Stankovic, asked about it, said, laughing: “It’s not first time.”

Nor did it bother the U.S. players.

“They’re just playing the percentages,” said Kevin Johnson, laughing. “Those Greeks are shrewd. They’ve got Plato, Socrates, all those guys. They know what to do.”

The Americans actually had to play for a while to put away the pesky Russians, on whom they had vowed revenge for those Olympic defeats in 1972 and 1988, and whatever else they could tack on to the bill of indictment.

“It’s like when your little brother comes home beaten up,” said Reggie Miller before the game, referring to Russia’s recent victory over U.S. collegians in the Goodwill Games.

“First you smack him for getting beaten up. Then you go find the guy who beat him up and you beat them up.”

The Americans smacked the Russians on Friday but for a while, the Russians smacked them back. The guards, Sergei Barazevich and Sergei Babkov, are NBA prospects as is small forward Mikhail Mikhailov. Barazevich kept breaking down the defense with spins and drives, the Russians moved the ball beautifully and at halftime, the United States was only up, 52-44.

The Russians were within 56-51 with 3:06 gone in the second half but then the roof fell in on them in the shape of Shaquille O’Neal. O’Neal scored 11 points in a 20-6 run and that was that.

With 9:15 left, Russian Coach Sergei Belov pulled his three best players but the game was already over.

“It would have been easy to play second-rank players but we respect the audience,” said Belov.

“I thought they were by far the smartest team we played,” said Joe Dumars. “I enjoyed playing this game because they make you play pure basketball.”

In a reversal of form, the U.S. players conducted themselves like gentlemen. They stopped looking for an opponent to glare at after dunks and bellowing to the skies in triumph.

“(Coach) Don Nelson made it a special point,” said Kevin Johnson. “We don’t want to disrespect people. If that had been how it was misconstrued, everybody took it on themselves to tone it down a little bit.”