Hello all. Living thousands of miles away from Conseco Fieldhouse means I have very few chances to see a live Pacers game. I threw caution to the wind, and bought tickets for the Pacers/ Clippers game. Although historians will remember this game purely for its awfulness, I wanted to share what I got to see.
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Staples Center is a pretty nice arena. You can look up and see all of the Lakers banners and retired jerseys, next to the zero Clippers. I was seated in the nosebleeds, directly in the middle so the it would sorta look like watching it on TV. That almost worked, except the scoreboard TV showed everything from the other side. Moving on.
Is the name "Clippers Strippers" all that bad for their cheerleaders? I dig it. Actually the name Clippers is one of the worst in the league, and could use a revamp. If they could get Washington’s old name, I’d buy more tickets to see the LA Bullets.
National Anthem performed by some American Idol dropout. She did okay once she found the key she was looking for.
Before the game Jeff Foster goes over to the ref and jokingly shows him how to throw the ball for the opening tip. JO tips the opening to Jeff. Jeff Foster starts! He’s my favorite Pacer, and I like the change. He gets in foul trouble early. (sad face)
Apparently the Clippers have a crazy fan who wears a split-down-the-middle red and blue suit. He starts the wave, chants, yells and whatnot. Makes me miss the Pacers beerman of yesteryear.
Jamaal put up a bunch of shots that made me cringe... but they all seemed to go in. He had the best play of the game, dribbling between Kaman’s legs for a layup.
Best moment of the game was easily the Dunleavy hug. Not sure how this showed up on TV but it was quite funny.
I had to explain to a few locals around me who the heck #13 was.
Games played during timeouts:
Crawl on the ground blindfolded for 500 bucks
Two guys race RC cars, ‘cept one breaks.
Shoot a blindfolded free throw
Shoot more free throws than the other guy
BEST: Take a halfcourt shot and win a truck. Goofy looking guy with three undone buttons falls well short of the basket. He then uses this positive momentum to propose to a girl. Nothing like failure setting up disappointment. (She said “yes”)
Note: I got to thinking late that this guy might have just wanted to get to shoot and be out there, so he made up the whole engagement thing and got his friend to go along with it. Maybe he’s craftier than he is accurate. That makes more sense than this semi-attractive girl marrying this guy.
The male cheerleaders came out with an air-powered T-Shirt cannon. He lines up a shot with the base of this thing resting against his groin and FIRES! It didn’t clear the court. Total dud. Hilarious. They proceed to throw the shirts 10-20 rows deep.
This was the worst I’ve ever seen the Pacers live. It hurt. That said, this atrocious performance couldn’t hold a candle to how bad the halftime show was. It was the most brutal I’ve seen at any event, ever. And I’ve been to Fever games.
We are enticed when the announcer lets us know that they have a special treat in store for us at halftime: A martial arts exhibition. I say “Please be Wushu.” (flying around crazy stuff)
Out came 20 kids, ages 5-14 and their 50 year old balding white man sensei. They proceed to start chamber-punching and doing lame *** kicks. This goes on for seriously 5 minutes before they break into a kata. Thankfully it was all over and I basically got all the excitement of watching a kung fu movie on pause. BUT WAIT!!! The speaker system crackles to life with a lady singing “God Bless America”. These kids do their same kata they just finished slower, so as to keep beat with the song. It was simply the worst ever. Suburban kids throwing up “Kia!” blocks in slow motion to “...to the oceans white with foam”. There are 50 better acts in Venice Beach that you can get to perform for like 5 bucks. I’m appalled.
Second half it almost seemed like JO was stat padding. Not looking for an open man out of a double team, just trying to fade back and shoot.
Watching us go up to 6-7 minutes left with 46 points was not fun. I was wearing an old school Pacers shirt from the 80’s proudly, until the game started. Thankfully we got to have our 3rd string match up with their JV squad. They were going so far down the bench I almost got pulled in.
What I hope comes from this game: I’d like to see them down about this, since it sucked. Maybe they could do like in Major League, and have Rick unveil a cutout of a woman that they all hate. Say... the Watson’s Girl. For each victory, they take off a strip. If we win enough to get to the playoffs, she’s just standing there displaying her 16th birthday presents.
It was good to see the Pacers play, even though they sucked. I think we’re as low as we’re going to go. Let’s get hungry and get some momentum going into the playoffs.
Maragin
Staples Center is a pretty nice arena. You can look up and see all of the Lakers banners and retired jerseys, next to the zero Clippers. I was seated in the nosebleeds, directly in the middle so the it would sorta look like watching it on TV. That almost worked, except the scoreboard TV showed everything from the other side. Moving on.
Is the name "Clippers Strippers" all that bad for their cheerleaders? I dig it. Actually the name Clippers is one of the worst in the league, and could use a revamp. If they could get Washington’s old name, I’d buy more tickets to see the LA Bullets.
National Anthem performed by some American Idol dropout. She did okay once she found the key she was looking for.
Before the game Jeff Foster goes over to the ref and jokingly shows him how to throw the ball for the opening tip. JO tips the opening to Jeff. Jeff Foster starts! He’s my favorite Pacer, and I like the change. He gets in foul trouble early. (sad face)
Apparently the Clippers have a crazy fan who wears a split-down-the-middle red and blue suit. He starts the wave, chants, yells and whatnot. Makes me miss the Pacers beerman of yesteryear.
Jamaal put up a bunch of shots that made me cringe... but they all seemed to go in. He had the best play of the game, dribbling between Kaman’s legs for a layup.
Best moment of the game was easily the Dunleavy hug. Not sure how this showed up on TV but it was quite funny.
I had to explain to a few locals around me who the heck #13 was.
Games played during timeouts:
Crawl on the ground blindfolded for 500 bucks
Two guys race RC cars, ‘cept one breaks.
Shoot a blindfolded free throw
Shoot more free throws than the other guy
BEST: Take a halfcourt shot and win a truck. Goofy looking guy with three undone buttons falls well short of the basket. He then uses this positive momentum to propose to a girl. Nothing like failure setting up disappointment. (She said “yes”)
Note: I got to thinking late that this guy might have just wanted to get to shoot and be out there, so he made up the whole engagement thing and got his friend to go along with it. Maybe he’s craftier than he is accurate. That makes more sense than this semi-attractive girl marrying this guy.
The male cheerleaders came out with an air-powered T-Shirt cannon. He lines up a shot with the base of this thing resting against his groin and FIRES! It didn’t clear the court. Total dud. Hilarious. They proceed to throw the shirts 10-20 rows deep.
This was the worst I’ve ever seen the Pacers live. It hurt. That said, this atrocious performance couldn’t hold a candle to how bad the halftime show was. It was the most brutal I’ve seen at any event, ever. And I’ve been to Fever games.
We are enticed when the announcer lets us know that they have a special treat in store for us at halftime: A martial arts exhibition. I say “Please be Wushu.” (flying around crazy stuff)
Out came 20 kids, ages 5-14 and their 50 year old balding white man sensei. They proceed to start chamber-punching and doing lame *** kicks. This goes on for seriously 5 minutes before they break into a kata. Thankfully it was all over and I basically got all the excitement of watching a kung fu movie on pause. BUT WAIT!!! The speaker system crackles to life with a lady singing “God Bless America”. These kids do their same kata they just finished slower, so as to keep beat with the song. It was simply the worst ever. Suburban kids throwing up “Kia!” blocks in slow motion to “...to the oceans white with foam”. There are 50 better acts in Venice Beach that you can get to perform for like 5 bucks. I’m appalled.
Second half it almost seemed like JO was stat padding. Not looking for an open man out of a double team, just trying to fade back and shoot.
Watching us go up to 6-7 minutes left with 46 points was not fun. I was wearing an old school Pacers shirt from the 80’s proudly, until the game started. Thankfully we got to have our 3rd string match up with their JV squad. They were going so far down the bench I almost got pulled in.
What I hope comes from this game: I’d like to see them down about this, since it sucked. Maybe they could do like in Major League, and have Rick unveil a cutout of a woman that they all hate. Say... the Watson’s Girl. For each victory, they take off a strip. If we win enough to get to the playoffs, she’s just standing there displaying her 16th birthday presents.
It was good to see the Pacers play, even though they sucked. I think we’re as low as we’re going to go. Let’s get hungry and get some momentum going into the playoffs.
Maragin
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