Thursday, March 06, 2008
Last night's Celtics game
1. I thought "Chauncey Billups" was a character from The Andy Griffith Show. Or a Faulkner novel.
2. I had no idea Rasheed Wallace still played. And he led the Pistons in scoring, too.
3. Only one Bulldog on either team, Jarvis Hayes, and I thought that would make it hard to root against the Pistons. But it didn't. And I'm pretty sure he never took the court.
4. Compared to MLB (the only professional sport I've attended live in the last 10 years, or so), an NBA game is total sensory overload. We sat down a half-hour before the game started and there wasn't a single moment of peace or quiet the entire night. And I'm not complaining about that; it was pretty damn awesome, like a home run celebration or a wrestling ring entrance stretched out for three straight hours. By the end of the night I was exhausted. They run these amazing videos on the jumbotron in the fourth quarter, where Boston players exhort the crowd to make some noise. Kevin Garnett looked like he was fucking possessed in his video, he was so intense. Some other guy (I didn't recognize him and didn't catch his name, it wasn't Pierce or Ray Allen) was even more insane in his video, squatting and cackling like a demon with eyes opened wide as if to devour us. It kind of scared me.
5. I'm positive last night's game is not useful for forming accurate opinions of the standard live NBA experience. The Hawks were in Boston on Sunday, and I'm sure the game wasn't half as exciting. Allyn and I would definitely go back to a game, if we could find cheap enough tickets, but I'm sure it'd be a huge let-down from last night.
6. Pierce was the most popular Celtic, based on the number of jerseys and shirts I saw folks wearing; Garnett, Allen, and Bird were all closely grouped together after that.
7. A random shot of Bill Russell sitting courtside got as loud an ovation as any of the player introductions.
8. This guy sang the national anthem. This guy is awesome.
1. I thought "Chauncey Billups" was a character from The Andy Griffith Show. Or a Faulkner novel.
2. I had no idea Rasheed Wallace still played. And he led the Pistons in scoring, too.
3. Only one Bulldog on either team, Jarvis Hayes, and I thought that would make it hard to root against the Pistons. But it didn't. And I'm pretty sure he never took the court.
4. Compared to MLB (the only professional sport I've attended live in the last 10 years, or so), an NBA game is total sensory overload. We sat down a half-hour before the game started and there wasn't a single moment of peace or quiet the entire night. And I'm not complaining about that; it was pretty damn awesome, like a home run celebration or a wrestling ring entrance stretched out for three straight hours. By the end of the night I was exhausted. They run these amazing videos on the jumbotron in the fourth quarter, where Boston players exhort the crowd to make some noise. Kevin Garnett looked like he was fucking possessed in his video, he was so intense. Some other guy (I didn't recognize him and didn't catch his name, it wasn't Pierce or Ray Allen) was even more insane in his video, squatting and cackling like a demon with eyes opened wide as if to devour us. It kind of scared me.
5. I'm positive last night's game is not useful for forming accurate opinions of the standard live NBA experience. The Hawks were in Boston on Sunday, and I'm sure the game wasn't half as exciting. Allyn and I would definitely go back to a game, if we could find cheap enough tickets, but I'm sure it'd be a huge let-down from last night.
6. Pierce was the most popular Celtic, based on the number of jerseys and shirts I saw folks wearing; Garnett, Allen, and Bird were all closely grouped together after that.
7. A random shot of Bill Russell sitting courtside got as loud an ovation as any of the player introductions.
8. This guy sang the national anthem. This guy is awesome.
