so i won floor seats to the rockets/lakers game last night... (pictures)

The rockets had a trivia question on twitter that i answered and i happened to be 1 of the 2 lucky winners. the other winner was jmac25. big shoutout to @houstonrockets for hooking it up and jmac25, it was nice to meet you!

anyway, i'm one of those fans that always sits in the upper deck. the view isn't that bad up there but i've never sat in the lower level before, much less on the floor so you can imagine how excited i was when i found out i won.

i was in section C106A, row D. i sat 2 rows behind rusty hardin.

i've never been so close to the action before. sitting down there, you really notice a lot that you aren't able to see when watching from the upper deck or on tv. here are a few notes from my experience:

- chuck hayes is a beast. yes, he's not the most skilled or offensively gifted player but wow, he crashes boards like none other and always plays hard.
- chuck can D up bynum. yes, bynum had 17 points but most of those points were off of rebounds and tips. very rarely did they feed him in the post and he scored on chuck.
- david andersen is nowhere near strong enough to guard bynum like chuck can.
- shane's defense is even more amazing in person than it is on tv. yes, kobe still had a great game but you can't play defense any better than what battier played on kobe.
- kobe is pretty sick. for him to make all those turnaround fadeaways with shane all in his grill was pretty impressive.
- kobe is a crybaby. you think he cries a lot on tv? he cries after every shot he makes asking for an and 1. it's pretty annoying.
- he also will get fouled by shane, get the whistle, and still glare at shane as if shane did something dirty.
- carl landry is a stud. his low post game is much improved. he looked really confident in getting the ball in the post and was able to score with what looked to be a lot of ease. he scored on artest like it was nothing.
- i love how kyle lowry always attacks the basket and pushes it when he gets the ball in transition. nearly every time he does that, he'll get 2 free throws since they'll foul him on the layup attempt.
- luis scola's low post game is so polished. it looks good on tv but it's even more impressive up close.
- ariza is still getting used to playing with a larger offensive role. he looks uncomfortable out there at times but i trust that he'll get better as the season goes on. i loved how he didn't back down from artest.

it was a tough loss to take but it was an amazing experience nonetheless. anyway, enough of my thoughts. here are some of the pics i took. enjoy.

 

more pictures:

 

"Which Rockets player led the team in plus/minus during the 2009 playoff series with the Lakers?"

i sat directly across from the lakers bench so the rockets bench was really far away from me. the only time i saw tmac or yao was when they were sitting on the bench so i have nothing to report on them two.

 

when did artest go over to check on yao?

 

yeah, it was pretty sad. all of my pics are posted in the order they were taken. the last pic is with 4:31 left in overtime and you can clearly see how empty the lower level was...