RIO DE JANEIRO (Rio 2016 Olympic Games) - Great teams fight through adversity to achieve their aims. Brazil's basketball team will have to do that to have success this summer after losing first Tiago Splitter to a hip injury several months ago and more recently Anderson Varejao to a bad back.

Veteran point guard Marcelo Huertas says everyone else has to step up, including big men Rafael Hettsheimeir, Augusto Lima and recent addition Cristiano Felicio. Huertas spoke to FIBA.com on Thursday.

FIBA.com: How does losing two accomplished big men from the NBA in Anderson Varejao and Tiago Splitter affect this team's chances of having a strong Olympics?
Marcelo Huertas: We have to deal with that. Of course it's hard to lose a guy like Anderson who brings a lot to the team inside, and off the court as well. Fortunately, we have a strong group of guys. We have another guy, Cristiano Felicio, who comes in that brings a couple of different things to what Anderson does. Such a physical guy, plays up and down, athletic, can bring a lot of energy to us as well. We have a bunch of other bigs as well that are really solid and have experience so for us, we'll miss him (Anderson) just as much as we'll miss Tiago Splitter for his surgery but fortunately we have a lot of bigs that are in shape to handle all the business. We're excited.

Augusto Lima (BRA) has a chance to step up and help Brazil

FIBA.com: How do you envision being at home?
Marcelo Huertas: It has to be an extra motivation. We'll have the crowd, basically we'll have more people supporting us here than we've had anywhere else so I think it's a big, big chance for them helping us inside the court and bringing extra energy, the sixth man on the court, hopefully we can bring a lot of joy for them. We're really believing that we can make history and people are starting to believe as well. People see us as a competitive team, they're excited about the idea of us playing at home and having a real chance of doing something big so I'm hoping the crowd comes to cheer for us and help us as best they can.

FIBA.com: Four years ago, all of you played at the Olympics for the first time and the experience, because it was new, brought a lot of distractions. How do you cope with the distraction of being at home?
Marcelo Huertas: We don't have to worry about distractions. We're inside the (Olympic) Village where there are tons of athletes. There are enough distractions for you to lose focus but I think we've all been through that. Most of us were in London and we have a group of guys that are really experienced and know what we need to do to achieve what we want. I think the most important thing for us is to keep our focus. We'll have some time off and can enjoy this time with responsibility and we know what we have to do. I don't think we have to worry about distractions. We have a very serious group of guys and we're going to try and help the young guys not to get lost but I don't think we have many guys that have this profile that will do crazy things so I think this is a good thing for us and I think we'll be in good shape.

FIBA