– Starting from the head coach, they came to me laughing and asking, can you call me home? When Finland has nothing to contribute, could they help towards the European Championships? Ville Tuominen tells about the request for help from the Danish national basketball team on Friday evening.
Tuominen was watching Denmark’s opening game of the EC qualifiers against Georgia. Denmark got a valuable win at home.
In advance, it has been thought that in the Finnish qualifying group, Serbia will almost certainly take one competition place. Denmark and Georgia are fighting for the second place. Finland already has a sure place for the competition, because Tampere is one of the hosts of next year’s European Championships.
On Monday evening, Finland will face Denmark in Espoo in the EC qualifiers. However, Denmark is fighting for the first European Championship place since 1955.
Ville Tuominen is very familiar with Danish basketball circles. In the mid-2010s, he was the head coach of the great Danish club Bakken Bears and won the Danish championship. After that, he managed to coach the Danish women’s national basketball team for a while.
Most recently, he was the head coach of Denmark’s under-20 men last summer.
Georgia, which also played in the World Cup last fall, had the best players on the field on Friday, thinking ahead Giorgi Shermadini and Tornike Shengelia.
However, according to Tuominen, Denmark’s young people played a big role when Denmark came through in the second half and took a hard time.
Tuominen, who played 193 Korisliiga games in his playing career, sees that Denmark will be able to beat Finland on Monday.
– If the young players play with the same energy and intensity as they did against Georgia, then Denmark has a chance. When a team playing with high energy starts to snowball in the right direction, it’s hard to stop it. If Denmark comes with the same rush as against Georgia, Finland will have some work to do, Tuominen estimates.
The toughest Nordics after Lauri Markkanen?
The general public inevitably doesn’t know this, but Denmark is also home to the toughest Nordic players, at least in terms of status Lauri Markkanen after.
Markkanen is the only Nordic NBA player at this moment, but from Denmark Shavon Shields and Gabriel “Iffe†Lundberg are currently the only Nordic players in Europe’s toughest league, the Euroleague.
Shields is the best scorer of the big Italian club Olimpia Milano, but missed the qualifying games apparently due to injury concerns. The last time Shields was in the national team games was in September 2018.
Georgia was able to keep Lundberg in their grip quite well, but the number one star of the Danish team has made several winning baskets this season in the shirt of Virtus Bologna, the biggest surprise of the Euroleague season. Virtus Bologna’s first assistant coach Lassi Tuovi previously described to Urheilu that Lundberg is a leading player. When he starts going, many others also go up in flames.
Lundberg left for the world at the age of 22 and stayed for one season Sasu Salin too as a scorer in the Spanish premier league in the Canary Islands.
The athletic rear man slowly made a breakthrough into Europe’s elite and even played in the NBA in Phoenix for four games before moving to Bologna.
– Iffe has come a long way. He was a top class athlete when he was younger, but not that good of a thrower. He worked for years before the throw. Then he became a top-class pitcher. When athleticism and throwing power came together, things started to happen, Tuominen describes.
Finland was in trouble on Friday when Serbia sought a lot of offensive rebounds. Denmark, on the other hand, dominated the corresponding area against Georgia and thus also got new opportunities to score.
– Denmark had a five in the last period of the Georgia game, where Iffe was the smallest of the five. He is 193 centimeters tall. It’s a very good sign for the team where Iffe is the shortest of the five, Tuominen says.
According to Tuominen, the back pack is caused by the hero backer by Darko Jukic absence. He injured himself against Georgia and will not travel to Finland. According to Tuominen, Jukic would have been, along with Lundberg, the second player to whom the ball would have been played in the attack at the decisive moment.
Other Nordic countries challenging Finland
In recent years, Finland has held the title as the best Nordic country in men’s basketball. However, the other Nordic countries have made a strong rise in the background. In the previous European Championship qualifiers, Denmark knocked out the basketball powerhouse Lithuania from the European Championship.
Tuominen sees that Danish basketball looks better after a few lean years. Along with the Euroleague men, eyes turn to, for example, the highly promising 19-year-old To Tobias Jensenwho plays for German reigning champions Ulm.
At the same time, Sweden also has a couple of promising individuals who can be reserved for the NBA next summer. No fewer than five Swedes are currently also playing in Europe’s best national league in Spain.
For comparison, Finland has three players in the Spanish top flight, two in the French top flight and one in the German top flight. Tuominen is well aware of the level of Finnish players, as he also works as a general manager at the Blacktop Management agency. Blacktop represents many Finnish national team players.
– Yes, there would be a challenge for Finland in the Nordic championships. There are pretty good players in the Nordics from every country except Norway, says Tuominen.
Of course, Finland has Lauri Markkanen, one of the NBA’s 30 best players, who is currently unavailable in the other Nordic countries.
– Basketball is a game where the strong can win if the team has the best player. Lauri changes the setting a lot, Tuominen points out.