Congrats to Ersan for winning the Eastern Conference player of the week. Boo to him for letting Kris Humphries control the boards. It was a battle of unheralded, but excellent rebounders and the more athletic Humphries was too quick to let Ilyasova get the tips that are so essential. Don’t be too harsh on him though. He was just displaying some of the wear and tear that comes after such a hard-fought, well-played week.

Being the one starter that hadn’t logged heavy minutes, he had the opportunity to showcase his skills today. It didn’t work out so much. His mostly unimpressive play might suggest that he shouldn’t get that much of a run. I’d say that he deserves even more of a run. Skiles has had little opportunity to see the first round pick play. There aren’t many practices in this strike shortened season. And Harris was out for much of training camp because of dehydration. He’s shown flashes. Give the rookie some run.

Gooden’s passing was pretty fantastic this game. He was even part of the highlight of the game: a half court lob to Harris. This is weird. This is the same guy who just threw a ball into the stands last week. Tests still have yet to show who he was passing to. This is just the life of Gooden.

He was alright in the first half. Then he had a downright awful third quarter. He made up for it with barrage of threes early in the fourth that helped the Bucks nab the lead. He was pretty much pure fire for a three minute stretch. He was simply too fast for the Nets back-up point guards (Deron Williams didn’t play) and his stepbacks and backdoor cuts were too much for Jordan Farmar to handle.

Dunleavy should be playing over Delfino because Dunleavy is the only one who can still affect the offense if he’s not shooting well. The passing between him, Jennings, Gooden and Udrih was exquisite and was the real engine behind the Bucks offense tonight.

He started! And for the first two minutes, he looked good around the rim with a dunk and an offensive rebound. What started as a promising night quickly turned sour as he was benched quickly in favor of Mbah a Moute.

Another game of Delfino being handily outplayed at the wing. There was one moment where the cameras showed Delfino talking to Ilyasova on the sideline. I thought to myself, “How?” That’s also my thinking on Delfino’s play dropping from “sufficient” to “awful.” What did he do during the all-star break?

Another strong outing for Jennings who wasn’t shooting very well. So what did he do? He attacked the rim and got to the free throw line. That wasn’t something Jennings did very often in his first two seasons, so it’s good to see him grow.

Dunleavy was the engine that propelled the Bucks second quarter outburst with two threes and an assist in the second. After that, he was barely effective, missing two shots over the rest of the game.

Tobias Harris and Jon Leuer’s playing time has been taken by Moute for what reason? Moute didn’t exactly slow down the Magic offense. The Magic’s offensive efficiency for the game was a ridiculous 114.

Brockman found his niche on this team. Midway through the third quarter, Skiles had Brockman foul Dwight Howard the moment Howard crossed half court. It was mildly to not effective at all.

Still alive.

Great shooting night for Larry Sanders. That hasn’t been/won’t be said very often, so we have to take opportunities when we get them.

Josh Smith, Tracy McGrady and Marvin Williams took turns depantsing Delfino throughout the night. Smith was especially cruel. Delfino had no rhythm on offense and no tenacity on defense.

Frankensova rose in time for a timely tip-in to put tie the game at 94 all. But then he lost his fellow vampire, Vladimir Radmanovic, who then hit a wide open game winning three. Besides those last two plays, it was a very non-descriptive night for Ilyasova.

Jennings was spitting hot fire in the second and third. He had one stunning sequence: three, three, steal, floater. It was everything that Bucks fans want him to be. The question remains as to why he wasn’t heavily involved late in the game. Jennings never took a shot within the last 2 minutes of the game. Down 97-94, Jennings wasn’t trying very hard to get away from his man, a play that resulted in Drew Gooden’s Drew Goodenness.

23 minutes of playing four on five on offense. The clamor for Moute to develop an 18 footer has been going on for years. But why have the worst offensive player in a century take the worst possible shot on the court? In the past, I would say that they should just have Moute shoot at the rim, but he’s not even doing that well anymore. So the only answer may be not to play him.

Was there.

Overmatched, overworked, overwhelmed.

He was an offensive darling tonight, but he was filleted on defense. Man? Bad. Help? Bad. For all the awareness he has on offense, the exact opposite is true for his defense.

Doing just enough for his purposes.

Efficiently occupied space and time.

Brockman’s ten minutes hurt my soul.

*sing to rhythm of the chorus of Hypnotize by Biggie.

Larry, Larry, Larry can’t you see, sometimes your blocks just hypnotize me. And I just love your flashy ways, but you can’t catch so you don’t play.

YOU ARE MISSED.