Lauri Markkanen overnight – Sweden’s Pelle mocked Susijeng

Helsinki The packed audience at the Veikkaus-arena saw a gigantic thriller when Finland met Sweden in the men’s World Cup qualifying match.

The decision dragged on until the very last moment, until Sweden ran away to an inevitable victory with its superstar Pelle Larsson supported. Larsson was a guy on a completely different level than the Finnish star until Thursday night Lauri Markkanen.

Markkanen’s start was difficult in the style of this summer’s qualifying games. The first throws hit the irons and the first drive to the basket ended in a loss. The line of referees in the World Cup qualifiers has clearly seemed more permissive than a year ago in the European Championships. Markkanen can’t get to the sideline every time he wants to.

The balance of the Finnish superstar was amazingly bad in the middle of the match: four points. At the end of the half, Markkanen was often completely without ball contact in attacks.

In the end, Markkanen scored only 11 points in the entire match. In the entire match, he sank only two free throws and nailed all nine of his three-point attempts. He had really big difficulties getting to the proper throwing spots and on the other hand the long throws literally didn’t sink in at all.

Finland hung on tenaciously in the match, but would have needed much more from its leading star. Especially when the opponent’s star was almost unstoppable and enjoyed a wild 31 points.

In the first half, the Finnish star had recently moved to the reigning Spanish champions, Valencia Elias Valtonen. He sank all his shots in the first period and at the beginning of the second.

There were so many problems in Finland’s game that a loss of only three points at the break was even a surprisingly good situation

On the third in the fourth quarter Susijengi started to wake up. Markkanen was enraged by the foul the referee gave him and then furiously rushed to the free throw line twice in a row. At the same time, the crowd started getting really excited for the match.

After his strong moment, Markkanen was quickly replaced, and the same gear was not to be found when he returned to the field.

However, things turned around midway through the quarter, when Finland’s charm disappeared after a couple of poor performances. Sweden quickly closed Finland’s six-point lead.

Swedish NBA star Larsson was in a phenomenal strike throughout the match. He sometimes teased the Finnish defenders and scored 31 points. The performance was very different from that of Vaisu Markkanes.

A descriptive situation was seen at the beginning of the final quarter, when Markkanen first hit another three-pointer, and right after, at the other end, Larsson sank the corresponding one in front of the nose of Markkanen, who was defending him.

When Markkanen’s game did not go well, Finland supported it for a long time Olivier Nkamhoua. The winger, who moved to FC Barcelona in the summer, forged a lot of important baskets and finished with a total of 19 points.

A win would have been important for Finland, but a loss will not spoil the chances of the World Cup yet. Susijeng has five more qualifying games left, next they face Estonia in Tallinn on Sunday.