Ersan “Arsen “Uzbek Thunder” Ilyasov” Ilyasova’s performance tonight would have been a lot more perfect had he not kinda choked at the free throw line at the end of the game. 9 of 9 field goals is sweet, no turnovers is sweet, but 3 of 5 from the line is decidedly NOT sweet. It ruins the whole thing, pretty much. How hard is it to hit a couple standstill no-jump setshots from 15 feet away? Too hard for Ilyasova, I guess.
Also, only nine shots? Normally a good NBA team will notice when one of their constituent players has a “hot hand”, and try to get that guy the ball a couple extra times. Are the Hawks tanking so hard that they blatantly ignored the hot hand and instead let other garbagey players take some other garbagey shots? It wouldn’t surprise me, because tanking is serious business this year. Luka Doncic is only gonna be available once.
Ilyasova could have had at least 30, easily. Maybe even 40. I like tanking a lot of the time, since it means more minutes/buckets for scrubs, but this time I don’t like it at all.