According to Lauri Markkanen, he no longer thinks about the NBA team of the coming season when he gets on the court. According to Markkanen, Susijengi was perhaps nervous in the EC opener against Israel, which ended in defeat.
Janne Karinkanta,
Roope Visuri
PRAGUE. Lauri Markkanen there has been more talk than usual at the beginning of the European basketball championships. That was guaranteed by the activities of Markkanen’s NBA club Cleveland Cavaliers the night before the EC opening.
Markkanen was traded to the Utah Jazz after spending almost the entire last season on the sidelines Collin Sexton and this summer’s first round booking Ochair Agbajin with and with several booking shifts. In return, Cleveland got a star quarterback Donovan Mitchell.
Markkanen was not paralyzed by this, but scored 33 points against Israel on Friday. Susigengi succumbed to Israel after overtime 87–89. The Finnish star was not available to be interviewed by the media after the game, but Markkanen came to Urheilu for an interview before the Poland match on Saturday.
The star player admitted in an interview that the deal came as a surprise.
– There have been other things to think about here, but when you get on the field you don’t think anymore. The next season’s team will not affect today’s game in any way. The focus is on the next 40 minutes. Let’s go, Markkanen stated.
In terms of chances of success, the deal was a setback. Cleveland has been viewed as an up-and-coming group of young stars. Utah again started a rebuilding project this summer, when the team traded their other superstar in addition to Mitchell Rudy Gobert’s elsewhere.
Utah is expected to be one of the back-end teams in the NBA in the coming seasons as the team builds its new ascent towards the top.
Against Israel, Susijengi led the match with his best 14 points. Markkanen was on fire right away in the opening period, when he scored 11 points in the first ten minutes. Israel started to take control of the game in the second half and came close to winning the match in regulation time.
Markkanen kept Susijeng’s winning dreams alive with his hard baskets. In the end, 33 points was a record number. It’s the most individual player’s point haul from a Finnish player in the men’s European Championships. The previous record (31 points) was by Timo Lampén on behalf of.
– We were not at our best. We were maybe a little nervous, Markkanen said about the Israel match.
At the same time, he sent praises to Susijeng’s fans. There were 5,238 spectators in the stands of the Prague arena, of which slightly less than 5,000 were Finns.
– There was a great atmosphere here. Many thousands of Finnish supporters here. It felt like a home game, praised Markkanen.
In ‘s vote, Markkanen was chosen as the hungriest wolf of the match and received a personalized cap as a reward. On ‘s website, you can vote for Susijeng’s hungriest player in every match. In every game, one of the people who voted for the hungriest wolf will also be raffled a cap similar to the one given to the player.
On Saturday, Susijeng has a big game against Poland. With the win, Susijeng’s position will improve in terms of further dreams. With the loss, Susijengi is in a difficult situation.
According to Markkanen, the good thing about the EC tournament is that after yesterday’s Israel match, we will play again today. On Friday, Poland punished the host team, the Czech Republic, with a score of 99–84. Back man duo AJ Slaughter and Mateusz Ponitka accounted for almost half of Poland’s points. The duo scored a total of 48 points.
– Poland has a lot of different things that they run. Trying to make things difficult for their key players. Let’s implement our own play even better than yesterday, Markkanen stated.
The live broadcast of the match between Susijeng and Poland starts at 14:45 on TV1. The broadcast moves to TV2 at 15:50. The match can also be watched live on ‘s digital services. follows the events of the Games in this article.