Saturday, February 21, 2009

One Heck of a Bucks Game

This LeBron fella is a good basketball player.

I went to the Bucks game last night against the Cavs with Mrs. Goldy. Figured I had nothing much going on this weekend so I called the Bucks ticket office during the day on Friday and asked if they had any deals going on. The rep told me the lower bowl was sold out but they had a deal where I could get two $37 dollar tickets, 2 vouchers for free beer and two Bucks' martini glasses for $40. OK, whatever, sounded fine. (More on that later).

At the game, LeBron did his typical throw baby powder into the air thing. The highlight of that was watching the 4 people sitting between the Cavs bench and the scorers' table trying to get the powder out of their hair and off their clothes for the first 7 minutes of the game. The game was very choppy. Ton of fouls and now flow. The Bucks were playing solid and hitting threes and had built a double digit lead at one point.

And then it happened ...

With about a minute to go in the first half, LeBron was bringing the ball up the court and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute stripped the ball from him between the circles and went in for an uncontested lay up. This was a strip that would have embarrassed any NBA player, so you knew LeBron would not take it well. I told my wife Lebron was going to abuse Mbah a Moute the next trip down. Sure enough, LeBron drilled a three with Luc Richard right in his face. The next trip down for the Cavs, LeBron hit another three, this time off the glass, at the buzzer, and the Bucks lead was only 6 at the half. That steal by Luc Richard could have been the worst play of the game for the Bucks because it set LeBron off. However, the fun was just beginning.

To start the second half, LeBron came out and scored 16 points in the first two minutes and 50 seconds. This was the most amazing display of basketball I have ever seen in person. It was better than the Jordan, "I can't miss" game in the Finals. LeBron just took over the game. He was hitting threes from 3-4 feet behind the arc with a man in his face, he couldn't miss. The energy at the BC was unbelievable. Every time he shot, the crowd stood. There was a buzz that I had never heard at the BC. Normally I am not for cheering for the other team, but what LeBron was doing was so amazing you couldn't help but get drawn in by the sheer amazingness of the shots going in. His teammates were going nuts, the fans were going nuts. It was definitely a run of shooting that I will probably never see again in my lifetime.

The rest of the game was entertaining as well. The Cavs built up their lead to double digits and the Bucks came back to tie the game. Then there was a fight. Always good times when a fight breaks out on the court. Charlie V. fouled Anderson Varejao hard on a put back. Vareajo flopped to the ground and his Sideshow Bob-esq hair was flopping all around. Villanueva was called for a Flagrant 2 foul and automatically ejected and Ilgauskas got into it as well and was ejected and then un-ejected after the officials looked at the monitor. I didn't know you could be reinstated after you were ejected. Anyhow a few minutes later, Ilgauskas hit a huge 3, Luc Richard picked LeBron's pocket again, and Lebron proceeded to bury two shots in a row after that. Moral of that story is don't piss off LeBron.

The Cavs went on to win by 8 in a rather entertaining game. After the game, we headed to the Courtside Club to pick up our martini glasses. It was once I got down there did I realize that the promotion the sales rep gave me was the Ladies Night Out promotion. Excellent. The highlight was our tickets were randomly selected to meet Charlie V. and Joe Alexander after the game. Since it was a ladies thing, Mrs. Goldy was the one who got her photo taken with Charlie and Joe and got a nice Bucks basketball that they both autographed. Charlie V didn't look thrilled about the night's game, but perked up when a bunch of completely hammered and decent looking 20 year olds had their photo taken with them. Joe Alexander doesn't appear to know how to smile, but was a pretty nice guy and was cool with the fact that I screwed up taking a picture of him and Mrs. Goldy twice before finally getting it right on the third try.

All in all, a pretty nice Friday night. Too bad the Bucks didn't win.

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