The Sixers might have lost to the Heat by twenty and Hassan Whiteside might have put up an easy-peasy 30/20 line, but at least there’s no way to blame Ersan Ilyasova for those things. He was never charged with keeping Whiteside in check; that was “defensive specialist” Nerlens Noel’s job. I mean, with Embiid out and with the Heat somehow playing well recently, this was basically a schedule loss, but Ilyasova did all he could to propel the team to victory.
I would even go so far as to say that Ilyasova SCHOOLED Okaro White. White’s a little bit too short to be guarding the Tartar Terror, the Crimean Crusher, The Uzbek Uzi, The Non-Turkish Nostradamus, and he was made to pay the price. Luke Babbitt was also schooled a little bit, but he gets schooled by anybody and everybody, so that was a little bit less noteworthy. Ilyasova perhaps single-handedly prevented a ten-day contract guy from getting a gig for the rest of the season. I’d say that’s noteworthy. Crushing dreams is always noteworthy.