{"id":512014,"date":"2026-08-27T20:35:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T18:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=512014"},"modified":"2026-08-27T20:35:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T18:35:35","slug":"pelle-larsson-31-pts-leads-sweden-to-a-stunning-win-over-finland-in-helsinki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/pelle-larsson-31-pts-leads-sweden-to-a-stunning-win-over-finland-in-helsinki\/","title":{"rendered":"Pelle Larsson (31 Pts) Leads Sweden to a Stunning Win Over Finland in Helsinki"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sweden pulled off a major road win over Finland at the Veikkaus Arena in Helsinki to open the Second Round of the European Qualifiers for the 2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>It was Sweden\u2019s fourth consecutive win, moving them to 4-3 in Group L, the same record as Finland.<\/p>\n<p>Once again, Pelle Larsson, the Miami Heat wing, was the star of the show, putting together a superb performance with 31 points (9\/17 FG, 11\/14 FT) and 5 rebounds. Simon Birgander also made a major impact, recording a double-double with 17 points (7\/8 FG) and 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n<p>Sweden also benefited from a strong all-around performance by Bobi Klintman \u2014 5 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 1 block in 32 minutes for the Virtus Bologna forward, who was coach Riipinen\u2019s most-used player \u2014 as they held highly anticipated star Lauri Markkanen to just 11 points on 2\/13 shooting.<\/p>\n<p>The victory was made even more impressive by the atmosphere inside the Veikkaus Arena, which welcomed 12,401 spectators, the ninth-largest crowd in European Qualifiers history.<\/p>\n<p>Finland appeared to take control late in the third quarter, opening a 56-49 lead on a three-pointer by Olivier Nkamhoua, who led Finland with 19 points. Sweden, however, responded behind Larsson and Birgander, regained the lead and showed enough composure to withstand Finland\u2019s late comeback attempt.<\/p>\n<p>Another statement win for Sweden, who continue their remarkable winning streak after coming close to elimination in the First Round.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Pelle Larsson drops 31 PTS, as he leads Sweden \ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddea to a crucial victory over Finland away from home \ud83e\udd2f<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/FIBAWC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#FIBAWC<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/StepItUp?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#StepItUp<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/FLlozKi5EP\">pic.twitter.com\/FLlozKi5EP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup \ud83c\udfc6 (@FIBAWC) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/FIBAWC\/status\/2093032222991303088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 27, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sweden Shock Finland in Helsinki to Open Second Round<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":512013,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[383],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[187],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-512014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-cup","typology-video"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/08\/pelle-larsson-photo-fiba.webp","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512014"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=512014"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=512014"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=512014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}