Free Clippers tickets? Umm, OK. . .

Now I'm not a Clippers fan but we were offered some free last minute tickets.  So we decided to load up the car and brave the disaster that is L A's freeways in the rain.

Thankfully the roads were mostly dry and clear.  But the game?  What a disaster!  I took some pictures and got nothing else to do with them so I thought I'd post them here. (As you'll see I'm not much of a photographer or storyteller.)

Pre-game:

Our seats were in the corner diagonally opposite from the Spurs' bench.  Unfortunately that meant each half consisted mainly of viewing the back of one team's heads.  (And by the second half I had mostly lost interest in the game and only took a few pictures.)
 

Here's a perspective of Staples as I saw it.

PregameWarm-ups.  (I quickly learned to recognize the backs of players heads.)

Start of game:

I just missed a shot of Duncan cuddling the game ball and grabbing the rim.  I'll spare you the shot of the captains meeting at mid-court.

 
The Spurs were lined up and ready to start for several minutes.  The Clippers players were off in all directions and looked like they wanted to do anything but start the game.

I was hopeful that losing Dunleavey as coach would be an improvement and energizing for the Clips, man was I wrong. 

Game time:

I knew there was trouble when Kaman was outside the paint shooting jumpers.   WTF?  Way to pound it inside big guy.  (No TWSSes please.)

 
If your 7 ft tall and a Clipper I guess the last thing you want to do is post-up inside. 

At the end of the 1st quarter my son pointed out that that the #3 Spurs dude had way more points then all the Clippers combined.  BRUTAL!  Btw my kids didn't know what I was talking about when I mentioned "Cubits Ninja Bot" or "Princess Peanut".  So I went with "Guess what kids?  That man's got no knees!"

Surprise! the Clipps showed absolutely no heart and were booed off the floor at halftime.  Quick, go and beg coach Dunleavey to come back!

Second half:

 
Halftime Warmup  (I doubt all those empty seats were people in line for beer or the facilities.)

 
Just to show you some pictures with players' faces.  (Notice Manu strutting round the arc.)



Can't figure out if Manu is passing or catching this.  But the ball looks like it is at his feet.

By the second half my daughter and I were about the only ones around us still cheering - mostly when the Clips got a stop since that was so unusual.  I knew the Clips were really in trouble when I saw Mason, Findley & Ratliff in the game.  And the Clips probably would have been booed off the court at the end too if there was anybody still left in the arena.

Misc Notes:
Only saw a couple of fans in Spurs jerseys, nobody from Argentina (as far as I could tell) and Manu didn't leave a courtside pass for me.  They did invite the kids down on the floor to shoot free throws after the game though.

All-in-all the game demonstrated why it is so easy to find these kind of things on the net: