Ersan Ilyasova’s struggles this season have been well-documented, so I won’t go too in-depth about them. I’ll just say that compared to last year, he’s taking way more crappy step-back and sidestep jumpers. He might have made 5 of those in total all year.
Until tonight, that is, when he added 2 more of them, in addition to his usual uncontested jumpers and his activity around the rim. The Jazz had no answers for his devastating scoring attack. 13 of 14 shooting, and the one he missed could barely be classified as a shot. It’s really too bad that common courtesy dictates that you take out all your good players once the game gets out of hand. We could easily have seen the Ill-man go for a career high. I bet all 2500 fans in attendance were disappointed. Including Kareem.