Team Australia downs Lauri Markkanen’s squad thanks to some familiar faces

Two former Utah Jazz players come up big in sinking Lauri Markkanen’s Finnish squad.

Lauri Markkanen was not expected to go deep in the FIBA World Cup with the Finnish team they fielded this year. While he’s easily the best player to ever come out of the country, Markkanen isn’t so good that he could carry a team of B-tier EuroLeague players against the best international teams in the world.

Sadly, the Finnish squad squared up with one of the favorites to win it all; Australia. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the star of the Utah Jazz had to deal with two of the most notorious players in recent Jazz history. While Markkanen is the face of the Jazz now, at one time the hope was that current Team Austaralia guard, Dante Exum would be.

And Exum didn’t take on Finland alone, no, he had feisty Australian ace Joe Ingles helping him out. Not, we’d be remiss to insinuate they were the driving force behind the Australian’s 98-72 win over Finland, but they were instrumental. They were key cogs for the stars of the team, Josh Giddey who nearly had a triple-double (14 points, 9 rebounds, 8 assists), and Patty Mills, who had a game-high 25 points.

Markkanen had a solid outing, posting 19 points and eight rebounds, and while he was good enough for a game where he’d have Jordan Clarkson and Collin Sexton around him, he wasn’t good enough when he was the clear-cut best player by forty whole miles.

Markkanen has to touch true greatness if the Finnish team is going to win their next two games against Japan and Germany. They have a good shot of beating Japan, but Germany is being anchored by Franz and Moritz Wagner, with Dennis Schroder, Daniel Thies, and Isaac Bonga helping as well.

Finland has got to pick up the effort if they want to make the second round.

• Published on 08/26/2023 at 2:29 PM MDT
• Last updated on 08/26/2023 at 2:29 PM MDT