TEHRAN (Iran) - Familiar foes duke it out one more time for the tickets to the Last Dance in the FIBA U18 Asian Championship 2022 Semi-Finals on Friday.

The four-team cast features teams that have already battled one another in the Group Phase, with China and Japan coming in with the psychological edge following their convincing victories over Korea and Lebanon, respectively.

Eyes are on those two if they can come out successful again, but their rivals surely won't make it any easier for them as they're out for payback.

Game time is at 3:45 local time, with the young Team Dragon and the Koreans raising the curtains of the semis at the Azadi Basketball Hall.

China is entering the match as the only unbeaten team in the tournament at 3-0, with their second win coming at the expense of the same team they're soon facing, 89-74, in the penultimate game of the preliminary round.

Looking back, the Chinese deployed a balanced attack in that dominant triumph, with Liu Lijia and Wang Haoran finishing with 18 points and nine rebounds apiece as a total of five players scored in double figures.

The tournament's best scoring team (94.0) have won games by an average of 33.0 points, including a 44-point beatdown of Qatar in the Quarter-Finals.

Now, they'll be playing a Korea side also motivated to show that they're better than the one who performed in the first round of the knockout stages.

They did reign victorious over Iran, 66-65, to catch the last bus to the semis and to the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup 2023, but not before weathering a furious fightback by the home team that saw them erase a 19-point deficit.

Luckily for the Koreans, leading scorer Lee Juyeong and the versatile Lee Chae Hyung connived in the endgame for the go-ahead bucket, and the two will surely be relied on again in their bid to exact vengeance against China.

Surely adding more fuel to Korea is the fact that they've lost to China in the previous two editions of the biennial cagefest.

Meanwhile, Japan are out to extend their mastery of Lebanon as they arranged a rematch of the 2016 Asian U-18 semis on the same battleground.

The one-time Asian U18 kings have been enjoying some success over the young Cedars in recent years, and that includes their 84-63 win last Monday to start off their tournament campaign on a high note.

Yuto Kawashima starred for the Japanese in that win with 22 points and 14 rebounds. He's since become their leading scorer and rebounder, and so he'll highly be banked on by his side together with the sensational Akira Jacobs.

They're coming into the semis in high spirits following their 76-60 quarters win over Chinese Taipei, but they surely have reasons not to be complacent as they're fighting a Lebanese side that's fresh from making history.

Lebanon rained down a total of 17 three-pointers on the way to ousting the erstwhile-unbeaten Philippines in title contention in the previous round, 99-83. It was the most triples made in an Asian U18 game in eight years.

Bryan Mansour and Karim Rtail starred with 28 and 25 points, respectively, with Karl Zamatta adding 10 and 17 in that win. And the trio will be leaned on again by a crew out to add another achievement for Lebanon hoops this year.

FIBA