Dubai: Defending champions USA were glad to face a stern test from Greece in their Fiba Under-17 Basketball Championship opener in Dubai on Friday night, according to head coach Donald Showalter.

The Americans have won both previous editions of the youth tournament under Showalter — in Germany in 2010 and Lithuania in 2012. And they began the 2014 competition with a hard-fought 83-73 Group A victory over the Greeks at Al Ahli Club.

Showalter, who works from Iowa City High School, was pleased with his team’s start but highlighted some areas for improvement.

“We gave too many offensive rebounds and we need to work on that. We also need to cut down our turnovers a little bit as I think in some of those we were trying to do too much,” he said.

“We had 46 points in the paint and that’s our bread and butter. People will have to guard us in the paint first and then from the sides.

“No question it is good that we got a sort of test in our first game. We don’t take anybody lightly, we play well against all teams.

“We shot 50 per cent and I think it is pretty good for this level of play, but we can improve for sure.”

The US squad had the temporary services of former NBA guard Cory Alexander as court coach during their recent training camp at the US Olympic Training Centre in Colorado Springs.

That seems to have worked well for Team USA, but the Greeks fought well and the Panathinaikos trio of Antonis Koniaris, Giorgios Papagiannis and Vasilis Charalampopoulos impressed.

“We knew Greece were really good. They had four guys who play in the under-18s and No. 15 [Charalampopoulos] is a really good player. He’s a big guy and he has got a really nice touch around the basket,” Showalter said.

“Sometimes in the first game you just want to get by and then see what things you’ve got to work on. I like the way we went. We had 17 assists and 16 turnovers. I thought our defensive boards did a great job with 22 offence rebounds.

“Their [Greece’s] 3-point shooting hurt us at times but one of the things I liked about our team is that our guys came off the bench with high energy every time and our defence stayed pretty good down the stretch against two of the best guards they had.”