Lakers/Jazz

Jazz/Lakers - October 4, 2015

I usually don't want to go to these type of events. For one, its just the preseason so the players are rusty from the summer. Second, the basketball players really have nothing to play for so they may go through the motions. But with fellow OAG member Daniel a Jazz fan that sparked some interested. An invite would be posted on the OAG page and David would join us.

For this event, I also bought a ticket for Jared and my dad. Though my dad doesn't admit it, he loves to go to these sporting events. He may appear uninterested, but after he goes through the experience, that's all he talks about for the next few days. I've learned that about my dad. The hard thing to do is convince him to go. Jared is similar. He has been a hermit and wants to stay home all the time. Though I talked to him about how cool this event would be, I knew he wasn't interested. He too has to be convinced. He will give every excuse in the book not to go. Jared too enjoys the experience once he goes through it.

I bought the tickets in May for this event in October. Tickets were $28 each. Although most of Hawaii has adopted the Lakers as its professional basketball team, the event wasn't sold out. That was until Kobe announced that he would be playing a week before the event. That was it, the event was sold out immediately and tickets starting going for $80-$200 on the internet.

I was worried about how I would feel going into this event. I had to run the Kailua 25k in the morning, and then go to Jared's baseball game with a short 45 minute break before we would head to the Stan Sheriff Center. Surprisingly my legs weren't sore, though I was really tired from the run. Game time was at 3pm. I knew there would be traffic, so we left a bit early 1:35 pm to be exact. The traffic was terrible, we got to the Stan Sheriff Center at 2:57pm. We waited for Daniel and David who came about 10 minutes later.

sold out arena

It was a sold out crowd, at least 10,000 showed up. We got into the arena with about 7 minutes left in the first quarter. I truly believe until otherwise that a NBA basketball game is the best sporting event on earth, unless convinced otherwise. I went to a Jazz/Mavericks game in 2011. Till this day it was bar none the best event I went to. Just the introduction(s) was so amazing, not to mention that game went down to the wire. I digress, the electric in the Stan Sheriff Arena was spectacular. Kobe was playing and you could tell, the crowd was in a frenzy every time he touched the ball. He played the first quarter and sat out the rest of the game. I was so happy to see Kobe play, albeit a few minutes. It becomes one of those moments that one would cherish for a long time ~ a 5 time Champion and future HOF.

Kobe (p.c. Daniel)

Our seats were in the upper section behind the baskets. The seats weren't too bad. The Laker's owned the first half, mainly because they made more shots than the Jazz. It was a pro-Laker crowd and they boo'd the Jazz constantly. Daniel and Jared seems to have a rivalry going on as Jared sided with the home team. The pace was fast, but you could tell everyone was rusty. Players weren't putting in the basket and their sets weren't fluent. It was a low scoring first half. One entertaining part of the event was the Laker Girl Cheerleading Squat. They had so much energy, it was exhausting to watch. I guess you have to have a lot of pep to be a Laker girl. I don't remember the Dallas Maverick cheerleaders being that peppy. Another interesting observation was that each girl appeared to be the same height and body type. They all looked 5'1", 80 lbs. The only thing different was the color of their hair. The squad was awesome, they are already on point early in the season.

Row M a.k.a. Pods

At halftime, the concession stands were packed, it was hard to move. I seen co-worker Nikki and talked short story before getting our nachos. $8.50 for nachos which wasn't too bad, but Jared wanted a bottle of mountain dew...$4, now that was outrageous.

Jared with $4 Mountain Dew

Enjoying ourselves (p.c. David)

The second half was all Jazz. They ran their sets so precise that they were able to dunk the ball numerous times because they got so close to the basket. They had at least 5 dunks. I was like, "ahhhh, throw that down" every time they were able to dunk it. It so amazing how athletic these guys are. Daniel was obviously enjoying the second half. I could hear my dad criticizing the Lakers on how poor their performance was. He really doesn't like poor performances. One fun thing was during timeouts, the camera would pan the crowd. During one of these timeouts the camera got a shot of these two guys dancing. It was so funny I was rolling with laughter. Even Jared was laughing. These two guys were so entertaining. The Jazz ended up blowing out the Lakers 90-71 to a somewhat disappointed crowd.

After the game, we waited because it was bumper to bumper on the way out. We cruised inside and outside of the arena talking story. David even got some close up pictures of the Laker girls.

having fun after