By Antonis Stroggylakis / info@eurohoops.net
The Utah Jazz marched to Saturday’s (17/4) game against the Los Angeles Lakers with a heavily depleted squad: No Donovan Mitchell, no Rudy Gobert, no Mike Conley and no Derrick Favors.
Quin Snyder just had to give some extra minutes to his bench players, and one of his veterans in particular: Ersan Ilyasova. The Turkish forward actually started the match at center and brought a “Stretch Five” mega-punch from the perimeter by making all of his five 3-pointers in the first period to hand the Jazz a 35 – 34 advantage.
“That’s one of the things he’s capable of doing. His aggressiveness tonight is something we want,” Snyder said on Ilyasova’s fiery entrance.
The Lakers proceeded to take the lead and hold it before a four-quarter Jazz comeback. After Dennis Schroder tied the game at 110 with a layup and Jordan Clarkson missed the 3-pointer to win the match, sending the match to the extra period. Utah succumbed to the Lakers 127 – 115 and Ilyasova fouled out in overtime, finishing with a season-high 20 points plus five rebounds and four assists after spending 32 minutes on the floor.
It was his first game with 20+ points since April 2018 and a Philadelphia 76ers 121 – 113 win over the Atlanta Hawks, when he had scored 26.
“This is the beauty of the team — everybody’s ready. Obviously it’s a long season, with a lot of ups and downs as far as just injuries and things like that. When I look at this team, everybody’s ready,” Ilyasova said.
“Sometimes you have no minutes, but you do your work and obviously get ready, and when your name is called, you just get up there and do whatever’s necessary,” Ilyasova added. “It’s all about staying ready, preparing yourself to show up and play the game,” he also mentioned.
Ilyasova’s highlight of the night was a block on a dunk attempt by Kyle Kuzma. “I tried to be aggressive defensively. I met him at the rim and tried to put my effort into it.”