Already hellish since the start of the group stages of this EuroBasket 2022, Lauri Markkanen did it (again) in the round of 16 against Croatia. Author of 43 points, he is the great architect of the victory of his Finland which finds itself in quarters.
His shooting range? It was the field. Quite simply. Markkanen inflicted everything on the Croatian defense who could do absolutely nothing except pray that his tormentor of the evening would join the bench and give him some respite. Except that the head canardeur never stopped taking things in hand to dismiss Croatia. The whole panoply of Kevin Durant went through it: tomars, long-distance shots, step-back, fadeaway, coast-to-coast… We even had a tap with 0.1 seconds to play in the third quarter for start the last ten minutes with a two-point lead. The Finn ends with 43 points at 19/29 on shots including 2/6 from afar and 3/4 on throws, with 9 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals and without losing a single ball, the tenth best scoring performance in EuroBasket history. He was the detonator in the last five minutes to send Finland to the quarter-finals, when the two teams were neck and neck. Lauri Markkanen made Dario Saric his golden retriever by walking him all over the court and having fun with him. The third best scorer of this EuroBasket with 27.8 points per game is now only ahead of Giannis Antetokounmpo (29.5 points per game) and Luka Doncic (28 points per game), the two other players who have scored more than 40 points in this competition. Nothing says that the curly blond will stop in such a good way.
We don’t know if the new Jazz player, involved in the trade to bring Donovan Mitchell to Cleveland, wants to make a strong impression on his new franchise. But we imagine that it is successful. Spain has been warned, it will be necessary to contain the great Lauri Markkanen to reach the last four.