Monday, Golden State against Phoenix. Ten minutes left in the third quarter. First a shoving match between Draymond Green and Khaman Maluach, who ends up on the floor, then a heated altercation between Green and Dillon Brooks. The referees whistle twin technicals. For Green, it’s the second of the night. He’s out, automatic ejection, with four points, four rebounds, two assists and one steal in seventeen minutes.
I know what you’re waiting for. You’re waiting for me to do it on the mic. The dark, the two-second gap, [jingle]. No. There are things I announce and things I let pass. An ejection for a technical, at our place, is silence on the mic. I cut the sound system, which has opinions, and for once it agrees.
What I do announce is the player coming back for the next game. That’s a moment. The two school fête spotlights, the caretaker switching off his half of the lights, and the name, with the pause. Mesdames et messieurs, dames en heren, the number coming back in! Doesn’t matter which club, doesn’t matter which jersey.
And at the end, I thank the referee, sir. Always. Even on two-technical nights. Especially those nights, because he’s had the longest evening, and nobody played him a jingle.
At our place it was pouring and there were a hundred and twenty of us on Saturday. No technicals. I kept the jingle ready anyway, in case someone walked in.
Just saying.
It’s true, we checked: BasketNews.
