Lazaros Papadopoulos and Antonis Fotsis scored 14 points each to lead five players in double figures as Greece remained unbeaten with a 73-56 victory over France.

The 2005 Eurobasket champion, Greece (7-0) put together another impressive display of teamwork and will meet the United States - also unbeaten - in a highly anticipated semifinal Friday.

"My players came out with a lot of concentration and they really wanted to win this game," Greece coach Panagiotis Yannakis said. "We put our egos aside for the team. And our respect for the opponent gave us an advantage."

In Sunday's 95-64 triumph over China, Greece limited tournament leading scorer Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets to just 10 points. The Chinese scored only six points in the third quarter.

Greece got off to a terrific start on the defensive end Wednesday, yielding just eight points to France (4-3) in the first period and allowing just 31 percent shooting (11-of-35) in the opening half.

"The first key for us is defense," said Dimitris Diamantidis, who had 13 points, eight rebounds and five assists. "All players know we must begin with this. After that, the offense comes easier."

Vasileios Spanoulis scored 11 points and emerging Sofoklis Schortsianitis added 10 for Greece, which shot nearly 43 percent (23-of-54) and committed just eight turnovers.

Playing again without Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs, who broke a finger prior to the start of the competition, France set its tournament low in scoring and is averaging just 68.2 points in seven contests.

Mickael Gelabale of the Seattle SuperSonics scored 12 points and Boris Diaw of the Phoenix Suns had nine for France, which failed to avenge a loss to Greece in the 2005 Eurobasket semifinals. "The way we played on offense was not all down to Greece's defense," France forward Ronny Turiaf of the Los Angeles Lakers said. "It was our inability to execute that got us in trouble and falling behind."

"It's not necessarily something they did," added France's Yannick Boloko. "It's more something we weren't able to do because they struggled at the start of the game as we did but the difference is that they woke up eventually and we didn't."

Greece scored seven straight points and opened a 12-6 lead on Papadopoulos' hook with 2:05 left in the first quarter. The score was 12-8 after one period as the teams combined to make just 8-of-29 shots.

But the game changed when Yannakis brought in Schortsianitis in the second quarter. He overpwoered former New York Knicks first-round pick Frederic Weis and made five free throws and Fotsis added five points to help the Greeks open a 31-21 lead late in the first half.

Weis was slapped with his fourth foul and Schortsianitis sank a free throw to make it 43-31 at the 4:15 mark of the third quarter. Diamantidis drilled a 3-pointer to push the margin to 48-33.

"France was a very athletic team, and I was just trying to draw fouls to put them in trouble and give them second thoughts before jumping again," Schortsianitis said.

Diaw's 3-pointer sparked a 7-0 run to trim the deficit to 48-40, but Fotsis buried a long jumper off an inbounds play to close the quarter, and France got no closer thereafter.

"We were very nervous and we lost our confidence, too," France coach Claude Bergeaud said. "I think we were scared, not by the opponent but by ourselves. During the development of the game we saw the great team play of Greece. I was surprised to see our team, who normally play easy, play this way under pressure."

The French will play Germany in a classification game Thursday. The winner plays for fifth place.