Against certain teams, replacing Giannis Antetokounmpo with Ersan Ilyasova in the lineup would have disastrous effects. The Pelicans are not one of those teams. With the MVP favorite sitting on the bench in a snazzy suit (probably taking selfies and making corny jokes too), the Bucks had no problem dispatching the Pelicans, who seemed to have no desire to play defense at all, given how many wide-open layups Ilyasova was allowed to take.
In other matchups, Ilyasova’s comparatively small offensive output, combined with his slow defense that relies mostly on taking charges, would pose a problem. While Giannis could both be MVP and DPOY in the same season, Ilyasova has never been close to being either. At most, he’s CTPOY (Charge-Taking Player of the Year). I haven’t noticed teams trying to exploit Ilyasova one-on-one this season, but they totally could if they wanted to. Luckily, the Bucks’ team defense is solid enough that it can usually cover for weak defenders as long as they don’t play too many minutes.
Here I am talking about defense like I care about defense. I don’t care about defense at all. DownToBuck doesn’t care about defense. DownToBuck cares about buckets exclusively, and Ilyasova provided some good stuff in that regard. In fact, his final statline of 18/9/3 in 26 minutes is his best overall game this season by far. That statline looks like something that Giannis would put up in the first half of a blowout, so, in that sense, Ilyasova completely exceeded expectations when he stepped into the starting role.
Is it too late to make this guy my mascot again?