Considering that the 2010 FIBA World Championship are taking place in Turkey, Hedo Turkoglu and company are certainly under a lot of pressure to perform well in front of their home crowd. Thus, Turkey will take on Timofey Mozgov and the Russian national team in their second game of Group C in Ankara on Sunday at 6 p.m. GMT.

After winning the 2007 FIBA Eurobasket, Russia experienced a drastic setback as they failed to make it past the group stage at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. One reason for the recent problems of coach David Blatt's squad can certainly be attributed to the absence of Andrei Kirilenko from the Utah Jazz and J.R. Holdem from CSKA Moscow. Albeit Kelly McCarty filled the hole left by Holdem to some extent, the Russian national team appears to lack the roster depth necessary to overcome some of the better teams. Likewise, Timofey Mozgov and company did not play particularly well at the defensive end of the floor and allowed too many easy buckets down the stretch.

Without any doubts, Turkey is fielding one of the most talented teams at the 2010 FIBA World Championship. After all, Hedo Turkoglu from the Phoenix Suns, Ersan Ilyasova from the Milwaukee Bucks, Omer Asik from the Chicago Bulls and Semih Erden from the Boston Celtics are expected to lead the team to a medal. However, Turkey struggled significantly in their preparation games leading up to the actual tournament and experienced various losses, including a disappointing defeat versus a German team without its NBA All-Stars Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Kaman. Likewise, center Mehmet Okur from the Utah Jazz will be sidelined by an injury, weakening Turkey's front-court. Nonetheless, Hedo Turkogu and company will enter their encounter with Russia as favorites to come away with a win on Sunday night. After all, the individual talent of coach Bogdan Tanjevic''s squad appears to be simply too much to handle for the team around Kelly McCarty.

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