Bobcats First-Timer

I got to see my first NBA game tonight! The Charlotte Bobcats played the Golden State Warriors, and I was sitting with friends and coworkers, happily munching popcorn and chips and learning the rules.

One of the cool aspects of seeing hockey and basketball games in person is how much easier it is for me to retain rules knowledge. I, for the life of me, cannot keep very good track of football games’ downs and when field goal kicks are going to happen. But both hockey and basketball make a lot more sense to me now that I’ve seen them in person.

The Bobcats didn’t win, and kept a (apparently sad) 15-point spread between them and the Warriors until the very end. (It’s hard to have an immediate sense of scale in basketball!)

The basketball game had a much more swank feel to it. We were in the same suite as for the hockey games, but it wasn’t just me and Nathan, and there was food! And bright lights! Plus, Nathan knew of a couple of players on each team due to them being local graduates.

Ooh, ooh! Michael Jordan was there! We could see his shiny head and him wearing his brand of clothes. (Eat your own dog food, right?)

Gotta say, though, I like the hockey games better. (Go Checkers!) Even though I only know one player’s name at this point (Peters, who was the goalie at the last game), I enjoy the pacing and freer play of the hockey game. The basketball game was all tied to the 25-second shot clock and stopped and started often for the various fouls.

Also, some of those guys totally needed to be throwing ‘bows. Measly little bumps as fouls. Psh.

The jerkiness of the basketball game meant that I missed some cool shots and grievous fouls by virtue of looking over at Nathan for conversation.

So yeah, I’ll definitely go back to a Bobcats game, but it’ll be the Checkers I’ll try to see every couple of weeks.