The NBA Experience

Today, I witnessed my first NBA game live. I watched the Indiana Pacers take on the Denver Nuggets. The short ride to Indianapolis went by quickly, especially with a nap thrown in. To eliminate our hunger, we stopped at the Scotty's Brewhouse, where there were countless number of televisions (Including a 10 inch screen at every booth). Surprisingly, it was not full as I expected since it is a short walk to Bankers Life Fieldhouse, or formerly Conseco Fieldhouse. But the service was quite amazing with a wonderful waitress, very friendly and attentive. For some odd reason, I couldn't eat very much but the Sun King Oriris beer was good. As always when I can't finish my plate, I get embarrassed and let myself down.

Then after the start walk to the stadium, the game began. The overly epic music during the introductions were played and the teams were ready to start the game. I expected the stadium to be more fulled than it was but this was a regular season game. The biggest difference in being a fan at a NBA game and a college game as to be the chanting. At least as a student, it would be considered normal to jump up and down like crazy and yell "OOOOOO"; this was not the case in this game. I would have felt out of place even standing up for more than a minute. I even felt people looked at me strangely when I yelled during the opponents free throws. I guess my student section habits don't play well with non-student section fans. It was interesting that there was a drum line and some sort of Pacers fan section, which I think is suppose to be similar to a student section but it was very weak.

To the game, I got to see UConn Alumni, A.J. Price play. He played well when he was in the game for a decent amount of time from the bench. As in his UConn days, he hit some three's, much less than in his college days though. The game went by pretty quick with the Pacers leading during most of the first half of the game. Then, after halftime, it was an all Nuggets lead. Coming to the end down by 2 with the final possession; only to have a bad play and get a backcourt violation to basically end the game.

My first NBA game was a positive even though the Pacers didn't win. But to be honest I rooted for the Pacers in this game but I don't really have a NBA team. But if I had to choose one, it would be the Boston Celtics.