Holders United States showed no sign of missing their top players as they breezed into the World Cup final with a commanding 96-68 win over Lithuania.

The Americans, competing in Spain with a second-string team, will head confidently into tomorrow’s showdown against either European champions France or upstarts Serbia who were engaged in the other semi-final last night.

The champions had steamrollered into the last four and their athletic outfit enjoyed another effortless evening.

“Lithuania are a great basketball country and were more than worthy opponents,” US coach Mike Krzyzewski said.

“We fouled like crazy (in the first half). In the second half we started afresh, we adjusted the defence and it made a huge difference.”

The Lithuanians were able to hold their own only in the opening five minutes, when some erratic shooting from the champions allowed the Baltic nation to take a 13-10 lead.

But they had no reply for US domination under the boards as the favourites scored an avalanche of second-chance points from offensive rebounds.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.