missmyzte
03-06-2007, 03:33 AM
San Antonio Spurs at Los Angeles Clippers
Staples Center, Monday, March 5, 2007
by: MistiLynn
Sometimes the stars align just right and you get to have a night like I had tonight. Courtside seats and tickets to the Chairman's Room, it was perfect.
Doors opened at 6:15pm, most of the players were on the floor or would come out but I didn't see Duncan. My seat was next to the Spurs bench, I was 2nd one in from the right so everyone had to walk past me to go to/from the tunnel.
Jackie Butler sat on the bench the entire pre-warm ups, except for the time he was leaning against the scorer's table. I knew he was inactive but thought he'd at least get out there with the team. Horry even came by at one point and threw the ball at him, it just hit Butler and came bouncing back to RoHo, who had a few words for him.
Manu is amazing, he signed autographs for the longest time, every single person he could get to. He came over and said hello, as did Horry. Beno saw me and came over to give me a hug (I could have died happy at that moment).
When the players all came running out from the locker room, I was standing up with my hand out so they all slapped my hand as they were running by.
Sam Cassell and Brent Barry were chatting for quite a while. Jason Hart came over and was talking to several of the Spurs players, it was good to see him again. Beno and Duncan usually have a thing where they both shoot a 3-pointer at the same time and see whose goes in. This time, Beno shot with Manu - Beno won.
Tim Duncan walked over to Sean Elliott, who was broadcasting near the scorer's table, took Sean's earpiece out of his ear and then walked away. Sean was looking around like, "What happened?"
You know the divider thing that is along the baseline and has the ads that scroll? Michael Finley was using that to stretch, he had his leg up on it and then the endcap part fell off. Finley looked at the security guard, Joshua, who standing right there and Joshua told him he wasn't going to fix it. Finley bent down, fixed it, kinda kicked it into place and then resumed stretching.
Game Time - We could hear Pop talking to the players, we could hear the players talking on the court - we could hear everything. I admit to not-so-secretly wanting one of the players to come crashing into my seat, and almost got my wish. Corey Maggette landed about 2 feet in front of me on one play.
At halftime I got to slap hands with all the players as they ran to the locker room as well. This is when my friend and I decided to check out the Chairman's Room, which sounded really cool from what I'd heard but is nothing special. It's down the tunnel and to the right, it's basically just a room with a bar and a couple TV's in the corner. I'd heard there were "appetizers" but all they had were peanuts and popcorn. Not my idea of VIP appetizers but oh well. I got a $13 cup of white wine (after waiting forever to be helped) and went back to the court.
We got a stat sheet at halftime and I noticed that Horry was the only Spur who hadn't scored. Figures.
Tony Parker never arrived at the game but Eva did show up at the start of the 3rd quarter, she sat just behind us and more towards center court. She left a couple minutes into the 4th quarter.
The announcer guy was trying to get the fans pumped up during one of the timeouts but no one was listening to him, the crowd was DEAD. And this was before it became a blow out game.
Shooting was terrible, Spurs took too many 3-point shots and seemed to get beat on offensive boards quite a bit. It's weird though how you lose all sense of the score from down there, I remember looking up at one point and was surprised to see we had a 20-point lead.
The Clippers tried to make a 4th quarter push but never got close, just a couple minutes left in the game the coaches cleared the bench. Fabricio went in and I was worried that he was going to sub for Horry, but he subbed for TD instead. Then Bonner got called and I knew RoHo was coming out of the game, and he was not happy about it. He was still scoreless. The towel boy handed him a towel and his jersey, Horry just threw them on the ground and sat on the bench.
The players were all leaning back except Horry who was leaning forward, so my friend called over to him. Horry sat there and let my friend take his picture, laughed a little then leaned back.
Bonner had a nice dunk in the couple minutes he was in there at the end - the Spurs bench exploded when he got that. It was good to see how much they all support each other.
The game ended way too quickly, I was having the time of my life but eventually it ended. We kinda hung out a bit to see if they would make us leave, they eventually did tell us we had to go since we didn't have post-game passes. I went over to say good-bye to one of the ushers that I've gotten to know there and managed to hang out just long enough chatting with him. I them moved over to where everyone was and looked like I belonged so no one said anything to me.
I had been texting with Angel_luv all through the game so I called her and chatted while waiting for the players to come out. Horry was the first but he had a lot of people waiting to talk to him. Bowen came out and was talking with friends directly behind me, then I started seeing all the players.
I was giving Angel the play-by-play of who was where and talking to who. Marc Blucas (http://imdb.com/name/nm0089456/) was there and talking to Timmy for a while. Beno came by so I said hi to him. Angel asked, "Who were you talking to?" I said, "That was Beno." Surprised her!
Security started telling people they need to leave so they could shut down. I had my picture with me of Brent Barry and I together, it was taken at the Spurs Tip-Off Luncheon. Angel was with me, she was going to take the picture of Brent and I but Brent's friend jumped in and took the picture of us.
Anyway, seeing my window of opportunity closing, I hung up the phone with Angel, walked up to Brent and asked if he'd sign the picture. Everyone around him was saying, "Nice picture!" and Brent said, "Nice sweater." (it was my pink Spurs sweater) Then a guy to his right said, "You're from XXX!" (fill in company I work for) I looked at him surprised and said "yeah, you've got a good memory" but I didn't know who he was. He looks at the picture and says, "I took that picture." Then I remembered that he was Brent's friend from the luncheon, we had chatted for a bit and he mentioned that he's from the LA area but I didn't expect to see him again.
I then called Angel back and told her, "Remember that guy from the luncheon?? He was here!" :lol: She and I ended up talking my entire drive home.
So, that was my courtside experience. Now I get to start working on my pictures and there are a lot of them. I was bummed that TP wasn't there but hey - I got a hug from Beno so it's all good!
Staples Center, Monday, March 5, 2007
by: MistiLynn
Sometimes the stars align just right and you get to have a night like I had tonight. Courtside seats and tickets to the Chairman's Room, it was perfect.
Doors opened at 6:15pm, most of the players were on the floor or would come out but I didn't see Duncan. My seat was next to the Spurs bench, I was 2nd one in from the right so everyone had to walk past me to go to/from the tunnel.
Jackie Butler sat on the bench the entire pre-warm ups, except for the time he was leaning against the scorer's table. I knew he was inactive but thought he'd at least get out there with the team. Horry even came by at one point and threw the ball at him, it just hit Butler and came bouncing back to RoHo, who had a few words for him.
Manu is amazing, he signed autographs for the longest time, every single person he could get to. He came over and said hello, as did Horry. Beno saw me and came over to give me a hug (I could have died happy at that moment).
When the players all came running out from the locker room, I was standing up with my hand out so they all slapped my hand as they were running by.
Sam Cassell and Brent Barry were chatting for quite a while. Jason Hart came over and was talking to several of the Spurs players, it was good to see him again. Beno and Duncan usually have a thing where they both shoot a 3-pointer at the same time and see whose goes in. This time, Beno shot with Manu - Beno won.
Tim Duncan walked over to Sean Elliott, who was broadcasting near the scorer's table, took Sean's earpiece out of his ear and then walked away. Sean was looking around like, "What happened?"
You know the divider thing that is along the baseline and has the ads that scroll? Michael Finley was using that to stretch, he had his leg up on it and then the endcap part fell off. Finley looked at the security guard, Joshua, who standing right there and Joshua told him he wasn't going to fix it. Finley bent down, fixed it, kinda kicked it into place and then resumed stretching.
Game Time - We could hear Pop talking to the players, we could hear the players talking on the court - we could hear everything. I admit to not-so-secretly wanting one of the players to come crashing into my seat, and almost got my wish. Corey Maggette landed about 2 feet in front of me on one play.
At halftime I got to slap hands with all the players as they ran to the locker room as well. This is when my friend and I decided to check out the Chairman's Room, which sounded really cool from what I'd heard but is nothing special. It's down the tunnel and to the right, it's basically just a room with a bar and a couple TV's in the corner. I'd heard there were "appetizers" but all they had were peanuts and popcorn. Not my idea of VIP appetizers but oh well. I got a $13 cup of white wine (after waiting forever to be helped) and went back to the court.
We got a stat sheet at halftime and I noticed that Horry was the only Spur who hadn't scored. Figures.
Tony Parker never arrived at the game but Eva did show up at the start of the 3rd quarter, she sat just behind us and more towards center court. She left a couple minutes into the 4th quarter.
The announcer guy was trying to get the fans pumped up during one of the timeouts but no one was listening to him, the crowd was DEAD. And this was before it became a blow out game.
Shooting was terrible, Spurs took too many 3-point shots and seemed to get beat on offensive boards quite a bit. It's weird though how you lose all sense of the score from down there, I remember looking up at one point and was surprised to see we had a 20-point lead.
The Clippers tried to make a 4th quarter push but never got close, just a couple minutes left in the game the coaches cleared the bench. Fabricio went in and I was worried that he was going to sub for Horry, but he subbed for TD instead. Then Bonner got called and I knew RoHo was coming out of the game, and he was not happy about it. He was still scoreless. The towel boy handed him a towel and his jersey, Horry just threw them on the ground and sat on the bench.
The players were all leaning back except Horry who was leaning forward, so my friend called over to him. Horry sat there and let my friend take his picture, laughed a little then leaned back.
Bonner had a nice dunk in the couple minutes he was in there at the end - the Spurs bench exploded when he got that. It was good to see how much they all support each other.
The game ended way too quickly, I was having the time of my life but eventually it ended. We kinda hung out a bit to see if they would make us leave, they eventually did tell us we had to go since we didn't have post-game passes. I went over to say good-bye to one of the ushers that I've gotten to know there and managed to hang out just long enough chatting with him. I them moved over to where everyone was and looked like I belonged so no one said anything to me.
I had been texting with Angel_luv all through the game so I called her and chatted while waiting for the players to come out. Horry was the first but he had a lot of people waiting to talk to him. Bowen came out and was talking with friends directly behind me, then I started seeing all the players.
I was giving Angel the play-by-play of who was where and talking to who. Marc Blucas (http://imdb.com/name/nm0089456/) was there and talking to Timmy for a while. Beno came by so I said hi to him. Angel asked, "Who were you talking to?" I said, "That was Beno." Surprised her!
Security started telling people they need to leave so they could shut down. I had my picture with me of Brent Barry and I together, it was taken at the Spurs Tip-Off Luncheon. Angel was with me, she was going to take the picture of Brent and I but Brent's friend jumped in and took the picture of us.
Anyway, seeing my window of opportunity closing, I hung up the phone with Angel, walked up to Brent and asked if he'd sign the picture. Everyone around him was saying, "Nice picture!" and Brent said, "Nice sweater." (it was my pink Spurs sweater) Then a guy to his right said, "You're from XXX!" (fill in company I work for) I looked at him surprised and said "yeah, you've got a good memory" but I didn't know who he was. He looks at the picture and says, "I took that picture." Then I remembered that he was Brent's friend from the luncheon, we had chatted for a bit and he mentioned that he's from the LA area but I didn't expect to see him again.
I then called Angel back and told her, "Remember that guy from the luncheon?? He was here!" :lol: She and I ended up talking my entire drive home.
So, that was my courtside experience. Now I get to start working on my pictures and there are a lot of them. I was bummed that TP wasn't there but hey - I got a hug from Beno so it's all good!