Last night, I had the distinct privilege of attending the highly touted Pacers-Nets game at Conseco Fieldhouse. This was a completely unplanned event for me, as a free ticket came my way less than two hours prior to tip. As I was not content to suffer through this awful experience on my own, I felt compelled to share this experience of extreme bordem with you, loyal blog reader, so that you may all feel the pain that comes with the extreme bordem that only attending an NBA basketball game during March Madness can provide.

Let’s relive this forgettable night together, shall we?

My group arrived fashionably late roughly mid-way into the first quarter and were pleased to discover that it was free t-shirt night and we were not too late to get our very own one-size-fits-all Indiana Pacers 6^th Man t-shirt! There were actually several boxes of undistributed shirts still available at the gate, an observation that made a lot more sense once we entered the seating area and saw the sparse crowd. Don’t Pacers fans know that their team is in right in the middle of the Eastern Conference playoff race? I mean come on, people!

My friend who had the tickets got them from his mom who won them from some call-in contest on the radio. I got a phone call on the way home from work about going to the game and two hours later I was sitting 15 rows behind the basket trying to count how many people were in my section. The “official” attendance was 13,282 (capacity 18,345) but I’d safely wager that the stands were well less than half full.

The second quarter was possibly the most boring stretch of basketball I’ve ever seen. But why should it be interesting? Is there anything more worthless than a score update from the second quarter of an NBA basketball game? The score and events that take place are not relevant in any way! When you’ve got ESPN on at home and you see the scores from NBA game in-progress flash across the bottom, does anyone pay attention? Are they even worth putting on there? Well, try sitting through it in person. The only note I made for the second quarter was that I noticed Vince Carter still plays for the Nets. Aside from this, I did notice that Vince Carter is still in the NBA and playing for the New Jersey Nets. He looked right at me on his way to the locker room at half time. How exciting!

One of the most annoying things about watching a Pacers game in person is that every time the Pacers hit a 3-point shot, the announcer calls them a “home run” for no good reason. So you’ll hear the announcer scream “Mike Dunleavy….HOME RUN!!!” Even worse is that the Pacers rank among the NBA leaders in 3-point shots per game, and last night they hit 14 of them…or 14 “home runs”…but who’s counting?

The mascot and dance team from the D-League Fort Wayne Mad Ants were in attendance and participated in some of the crowd interaction during the time outs. The Mad Ants mascot was wearing one of the free Pacers 6^th Man t-shirts.

Mercifully, half time arrived and we were treated to a juggling show.

Things finally started to get more interesting in the 3^rd quarter. As play resumed for the second half, everyone in our section was giving a free pair of those inflatable boom-boom thunder sticks. Everyone, including us, became completely distracted and missed the entire 3^rd quarter playing with these stupid things. It kind of felt like I was playing Rock Band on Xbox with the new thunder stick instrument because we all attempted to play along with whatever song they played over the PA. When they weren’t playing music we were busy hitting each other.

The break between the 3^rd and 4^th quarter got my attention back out on the floor as they brought out the trampoline for mascot slam dunks - without a doubt one of the most under appreciated time out promotions. It was very entertaining! The Pacers even went through the trouble and expense to include some fireworks on the finale somersault mascot dunk.

Another thing I’d like to note is that the Pacers brought out a very impressive t-shirt launching device, capable of easily reaching the upper level from the playing floor. Having built a couple t-shirt cannons myself, I was very impressed. They had a standard t-shirt cannon that had a similar design to mine, but they also had another launching device made out of one of those big 55 gallon metal barrels. It was brilliant.

One thing that really bothered me for most of the game was the young Indiana Pacers fan sitting a few seats down from the scorers table on the New Jersey bench. Maybe there’s a story behind this, but I’ve never seen it before. It was some kid in Pacers gear who had an arm load of foldable signs that he would hold up from time to time.

Very few of the players seemed noteworthy. I’ll avoid making jokes at their expense.

Hmm…maybe I should add a few comments about the actual game? Here is a one paragraph recap - about halfway through the 4^th quarter, the officials made some very questionable calls against the Pacers on consecutive trips that sent an audible rumble through the crowd about the refs making calls to keep it close for gambling purposes. I would have looked up the spread before the game if I had more than a few minutes notice…but oh well. Soon after these two fouls, Pacers leading scorer Danny Granger fouled out on another strange call when he fell to the floor after going up for an offensive rebound. Lucky for the Pacers, there wasn’t enough time left at this point to mount a serious comeback and the Nets resorted to a seemingly endless series of fouling to stop the clock. The Pacers hit their free throws, the Nets ran out of time, and the final score was inflated.

Also, Lawrence Frank is very short.

Final Score - Pacers 123, Nets 115 - and of course, the Pacers pull to within one game of 9^th place in the Eastern Conference!