The Pacers Season Ticket Experiment: Game 2

The lower and club levels a minute after tipoff...you don't want to see the balcony...

Oh...boy. Well, on the plus side, the ticket office will probably have some sweet promotions to offset this mess.

Game Two of my season ticket package was last night against 2009 Western Conference Finalists Denver. Though it was a Tuesday, you'd think players like Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups would help fill an arena. In fact, the Nuggets themselves are like a classroom of life's bad examples. 'Melo could be especially useful for parents trying to teach their children the virtues of not snitching, Kenyon Martin could teach children how to respectfully deal with the mothers of your peers, Anthony Carter could lecture on reading comprehension during contract talks, and Chris Andersen could share his views on crystal meth and their effects on the athlete. But no one was buying it...and the Pacers didn't show anything that would keep the fans coming back.

That's Professor Andersen to you, son.

Indiana continued their slide by playing terrible basketball. Much like the home opener, they lost a key big man when Troy Murphy went out with a back injury in the first half. Roy Hibbert, Solomon Jones, and Josh McRoberts were unable to pick up the slack, giving up lots of offensive rebounds and second chance points. Brandon Rush and Danny Granger both failed to hit their shots and had trouble getting anything going in the pain, and T.J. Ford forced the action too much at point guard, often ruining fast breaks by dribbling into defenders or taking contested jumpers.

Granger picks up his second straight A"F"G Award for awful 3-pt shooting (2-10).

The Hibbert/Jones rotation at center is rigid and mostly ineffective - Hibbert did most of his damage in garbage time. O'Brien would be better suited playing smaller at times - this team is stocked with quick guards, and a lineup of Murphy/Granger/Rush/Dahntay Jones/Ford could put up some points and not get too abused defensively against teams without major low-post threats (you know...like Denver...).

The highlight of the game was probably the fans in my section. Between the foreigners who were just excited to be at an NBA game (cheering even Roy Hibbert's airballed layup) and the high school kids whose hero worship of Josh McRoberts was audible all the way down to the court in a mostly vacant Fieldhouse, at least they kept it interesting. Hopefully those guys will be there for weekend games too, so I can get drunk enough to be excited about Josh McRoberts with them (or even Travis Diener).

Next game: 11/6 vs. Washington

Level of excitement: 3/5 (Friday night game...a banner raising for Mel Simon...sounds good)

(Editor's note: level of excitement for Pacers games depicted by Achewood characters along with a scale of 1-5)