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The Home Road Loss to the Lakers
Posted by: Jeff Winget on April 3rd, 2011
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.On Friday, I bought tickets through Flash Tickets to attend the game between the Jazz and the Lakers. I had promised my friend Xavi that we would go to the game to see his favorite player in the NBA, Pau Gasol. I wrote about his first experience at an NBA game before, so I won’t go into much detail about his thoughts in this post.
We arrived at the game a few minutes before tip off, and immediately noticed a sea of puke-yellow jerseys poring into the stadium. Xavi said, “There are a lot of Lakers fans here. Why?” I explained to him that a lot of Lakers fans are Lakers fans only because the Lakers have been winning a lot lately and have Kobe Bryant on their team. I joked that the same fans that were at the game that night wearing Kobe jerseys will be at the game next year against the Heat wearing LeBron jerseys.
When we made it to our seats, pizza and drinks in hand, we looked around. In front of us, there were three rows full of Lakers fans. There was already some trash talking going on, especially with one fan who was particularly vocal in his support of the Lakers. Xavi and I spoke in Spanish about the game, and he zoomed his camera in on Gasol to get a few pictures. When the game started, the talking between the Jazz fans in the section and the Lakers fans increased, although it remained civil and friendly the entire night.
During the first half the cheers for each team seemed about even. When the Lakers scored, there was a big roar from the Lakers fans, and when the Jazz scored, the ESA rocked with its typical “we love the Jazz” reverberations. The Jazz rode an early run to keep the lead into halftime, but watched it evaporate in the third as the Lakers took control of the game and eventually won going away.
During this second half explosion, the stadium felt like Staples Center. The crowd was raucous in its support of the Lakers, the only Jazz event that interrupted it was the standing ovation given to John Stockton when his face was put on the JumboTron. When Kobe shot free throws, the crowd shouted “MVP! MVP! MVP!” (During one of these chants, I asked the kid in front of me where Derrick Rose was, since he is the MVP, but I digress). When CJ Miles was on the line, the crowd booed loudly and did all that it could to distract the young wing as he shot.
As hordes of Jazz fans filed out midway through the fourth quarter, the Staples Center feel intensified. I’ve been to lots of Jazz games in the ESA, and I’ve never seen it so hostile toward the home team. Even when they played the Bulls in the 90s, the Jazz fans could drown out the dissenters. They couldn’t do that on Friday night even though they tried.
As a final note, I asked the loud Laker fan in front of me if he was actually from LA. He said he was, and I congratulated him for not being the type of fan that comes and roots for the Lakers one week and the Heat the next. He said he did come to root for the Heat as well because “LeBron is the bomb.” So much for him not being a star-chasing, bandwagon fan.
Overall, Xavi and I had fun at the game. We got home really late (I went to bed at 3 a.m.), but it was worth the trip. I just wish the game had felt like a real home game and not a game at the Staples Center.
Replies: 7
Views: 694
7 Responses
That is such a shame. It was annoying hearing all the Laker fans. What a dork, for that Laker fan to say oh I will cheer Lebron cause he’s the bomb!
ESA will get loud again. We love our team. We won’t be down for long!
I was there.. I have to agree with the feel and the scene. Its a shame that we cannot support our team even when they are not winning. But if I am right, its been much quieter this season than in seasons that are done and gone. We used to be the house everyone was afraid to go and play at. I guess we could say that we as a 6th man, have been failing at our job this season. But that was nothing compared to this game. You would have thought we warped to LA and thats sad when your at home..
When you fans critisize the players, make sure that you have done all your part..
Next time the Lakers come to ESA we should all take big signs with the two following definitions, one on each side of the sign:
band·wag·on (bndwgn)
n.
When someone adopts a popular point of view for the primary purpose of recognition and/or acceptance by others.
front-run·ner also front·run·ner (frntrnr)
n.
Also known as “Fair-weather fan”.
People who only support sports teams that recently win championships and then claim they liked that team all along. These people can be highly annoying, approaching them may result in increased levels of stress and aggression. Frontrunners may claim they have a relative or were born in the state where the winning team is from. Do not trust them at any cost.
I got both definitions from urbandicionary.com.
@TACOREV,
Awesome!! I love it. We need them for when the Lakers and the Heat come to town.
I have noticed this happening a lot more this season. I has written about it countless times on my Jazz website but it really makes me angry. What happened to the loudest area in the NBA?
As for the fans doing their job: In my experience you need to have a team that does a certain amount of hustling to get the fans behind them.
This year I feel like we have not seen much of that (Watson and Price early in the year did that, Brewer and Matthews last year – one after the other).
Even Boozer for all the problems with him was a player who brought emotion into the game.
Oh well, I like to watch Hayward and look forward to next season. For now I’ll root for the Chicago Jazz, I guess.
Thanks for the firsT-hand account, even sitting at home you could hear the cheering for the Lakers. I went to a LA/Jazz game last year and it made me so mad, I felt like I was surrounded by Laker fans. I think that happens more often with Flash Seats because they are season ticket holder’s seats sold on the internet, a popular way to buy tickets from out-of-town. Even if out-of-town is only Provo. Obviously the way to stop so much of this is for Jazz fans to buy more tickets, but that hasn’t been happening this year. I bet even loyal season ticket holders are selling their tickets pretty cheap. I will also be cheering for the Chicago Jazz and wondering what if we still had Boozer, Matthews, Korver and Brewer ???? It could not have been any worse. That being said, hope for the future is bright, may take 2-3 years so patience is essential.