Paul Arnott
Years ago
Funny Spurs v Grizzlies - from Arnie at the game
I'm half way through a two week work junket in Austin, Texas, and I managed to catch the Spurs v Grizzlies game on Saturday at the SBC Centre in San Antonio. Unlike Coach Flynn, my travels aren't bloggworthy, but I thought some readers might be interested in how the game was run.
The SBC center seats about 18,000, and the game was a sell out. The top-level stand was ridiculously steep, so even though we had the cheapest seats in the house, we still had a pretty impressive view of the game. The stadium was built two years ago, to replace the Alamodome. I saw a game at the 60,000 seat Alamodome in '99 which was attended by about 20,000, and the atmosphere at the SBC Centre was obviously much better (it might have been a different story at either of the first two games of the '99 NBA finals at the Alomodome, which 39,000 attended).
Outside the stadium, posters and magnets were on sale. We paid $2 for 2 A4 posters, 2 magnets and 2 copies of the San Antonio Express newspaper. During the 15 minute queue to get into the stadium, a couple of the team dancers entertained the fans and tried to get them fired up for the game. They put on another show in the foyer after the game, to entertain people while they were waiting for car park traffic to die down.
The stadium foyer was filled with merchandise and food stands. There was a main store, selling Spurs clothing and memorabilia, and a couple of other minor outlets around the stadium selling a subset of these. The food stands included standard outlets like Subway, Wendys and Whattaburger (which is the best name for any food chain, anywhere).
From pre-game to post-game, the entertainment was slick. The video screen running right around the stadium was impressive, and the video replay on the main scoreboard was great for keeping the pressure on the umpires.
Time out and quarter/half time breaks featured:
- a sponsored competition in which contestants had to throw oversized donuts into oversized coffee cups and milk glasses
- a competition in which people had to throw a minibasketball into buckets spaced around the court
- the obligatory half-way line shootout
- chearleaders
- cartwheeling gymnasts
- the coyote mascot jumping on the each letter of the Spurs logo, in time with loud drum beats and the crowd shouting each letter
- the coyote shooting freebies into the crowd with some sort of rocket launcher
- kids shooting foul shots
The San Antonio Express newspaper had a remote controlled blimp jetting around the stadium, in the shape of a newspaper (see photo below).
The game itself wasn't all that exciting. The Spurs had the second best record in the league, and the Grizzlies were fighting for a playoff spot. The Spurs defended well, and in offence, they sliced through the Grizzlies defence, creating open three point shots. Duncan was recovering from injury and didn't dominate. Manu Ginobili was the best for the Spurs, and Pau Gasol for the Grizzlies. It seemed like there were more "international" players than locals - the Spurs had Ginobili (Argentina), Parker (France), Duncan (Virgin Islands), Nesterovic (Slovenia), Udrih (Slovenia) and Marks (New Zealand), and the Grizzlies had Gasol (Spain).
Brett Brown was one of the 4 Spurs assistants. Their time-out ritual was an exagerated replica of the 36ers' - in one timeout, they spent about 90% of their time chatting to each other, and only approached the players when the umpires blew their whistle.
The game highlight was a fast break alleyoup in garbage time by New Zealander Sean Marks. After making the dunk, Marks almost fell over backwards, then fell to his knees, then almost fell over forwards as the ball hit him in the head. I saw a replay on ESPN, in which the commentator said that at that point, the game had officially become a "laugher", and the camera crossed to a shot of Ginobili laughing uncontrollably on the bench, for at least 10 seconds. Needless to say, the Spurs won comfortably.
