Tuesday wasn’t Lauri Markkanen’s best performance in EuroBasket 2017 for Finland against Greece, but he still showed why he’s one of the names to watch throughout the entire tournament.
With Finland needing just one more victory to clinch a spot into the knockout stage of EuroBasket 2017, Lauri Markkanen dropped 17 points and pulled in six rebounds in Finland’s 89-77 victory over Greece on Tuesday.
Markkanen, who was averaging 24.3 points per contest coming into Tuesday’s game with the Greeks, made five of his nine shot attempts on the day. It wasn’t his best performance during the tournament, but it was arguably his most interesting of the four games the Finns have played so far.
In the 29+ minutes Markkanen played, he didn’t really showcase his skills on the perimeter. He did hit was basically felt like a dagger into Greece’s chances of pulling off a miraculous comeback in the fourth quarter, but most of his work came in the painted area during Thursday’s game. Markkanen had to show a bit more ruggedness and toughness against the Greeks.
Nothing came too easy for Markkanen on Tuesday, as it felt like every rebound he pulled down was strongly contested. At one point in the second half, Markkanen was called for an unsportsmanlike foul after he pulled down a defensive rebound and swung his elbows a couple of times to protect himself underneath the basket.
A few minutes after that little tussle, Markkanen made a great quick decision to drive past Thanasis Antetokounmpo — the brother of Giannis Antetokounmpo — and after clearly beating Antetokounmpo, Markkanen got dragged down by his jersey, which resulted in another unsportsmanlike foul for Greece; another one after a similar foul call stunted their 13-2 push to start the fourth quarter.
Greece got called for two fouls earlier in the fourth: one was an unsportsmanlike call on Vangelis Mantzaris for reaching in and basically committing a clear-path foul, and the other was a technical foul on the Greek bench after Mantzaris was called for his foul.
The lead was at just four after Finland led by 15 points to start the fourth quarter. Three made free throws by Teemu Rannikko and the dagger triple from Markkanen later, the game was pretty much out of reach for Greece.
Tuesday wasn’t easy for Markkanen by any stretch of the imagination. Everything he got, he had to work for. This is something that’ll be a common trend during his rookie season and beyond in the NBA. He’s still got some room to grow (literally) and he’s going to have to show that toughness down low on both ends of the floor to find some success.
Luckily for Finland, he did just that.
Good 2nd Q for Markkanen (6 pts, 2/3 fga). Two strong finishes through contact, showing that he can score by putting the ball on the floor. pic.twitter.com/tUtgaYle2f
— Steph Noh (@StephNoh) September 5, 2017
On another positive note for Bulls fans, they may have drafted someone that can take the place of Taj Gibson and his ability to throw down some monstrous, rim-rattling slams moving forward.
Finland concludes their group stage play with a meeting against Iceland on Wednesday afternoon. The knockout round begins on Saturday, Sept. 5, so there’s still a few chances to see Markkanen in action for the Finns.
Next: Markkanen has been Finland's best player at EuroBasket 2017
The main question right now is whether or not Lauri Markkanen can do this kind of stuff in the best basketball league in the world. He’s shown that he can do against the best Europe has to offer, so that’s a nice start.