I'm finally getting to see the Vipers play in person on Friday. I'm going to the Valley and I hope they take 50 threes for XMas! Super pumped! Anyone else see them this year in person? Anyone going Friday?
That's awesome, Don! Let us know how it is. Maybe I'll take a little road trip down to the valley sometime myself. The games look pretty fun.
Sorry for the extremely extremely late response. I have been playing catch up after being out of town twice in a row. This is my recollection of 12/20/2013 from my seat. First off, the stadium down there is pretty good. It's similar to the Toros' stadium in Austin, but it feels a good bit nicer, starting from the parking lot and all the way into your seat. The beer tasted very cold and delicious. The nachos were all they were cracked up to be. Clutch the bear was there and his highlight video they ran was excellent. His abilities to surprise someone with a cake from 10 stories above the Toyota Center are amazing. I believe he hit one from half-court and another from a giant red ball. Mr. Olbrecht is way out of shape compared to where he was before, but he certainly helped the team. He's still bringing the ball too low when he gets fed on fast breaks. It's aggravating because I've yelled at him before to correct it and he did, but now he's back to his old ways. Coaches, this is on you to fix. That two points he would have had was the difference in the game. Chris Johnson decided he was going to run the show on both ends of the court, but forgot that 2 technicals paired together are tough to come back from. He seriously was awesome and did not deserve the first tech. I would have liked to have seen the result without the tech party in the first half. My only side note is that he has developed a Euro-step, but it is under-developed for an odd reason: He does it just a hair too fast. He basically needs to slow down the move and it will work. Instead he drove right into the players chest. If he lets the defenders momentum carry them back while he hits the brakes, there's the separation he wanted. Isaiah Canaan needs to practice shutting his mouth when it comes to refs. He's clearly the best prospect on the floor, but losing your cool costs points. More on him later. His first half stunk, but he had double digit gripes before the buzzer sounded. The THREE count. The first few minutes made it look promising to hit that 45-50 mark, but this offense was not clicking like it should. Only 27 threes shot. I was one very disappointed Rocket/Viper fan. However, I still wanted them to win. This team's biggest weakness is it's ability to make a comeback. They did not play inspired ball until the last few minutes. The person I was with said that Daryl was impressed by a 27 point comeback made earlier in the year and it looks like they wanted to repeat that night. Bad, bad, bad idea. That's the Tony Romo method and it doesn't work. Hitting a shot to win the game is awesome, but winning isn't about comebacks. It's about making winning plays and sometimes that's done in the third quarter. Covington had a pretty good game. It was not pretty, but it was good. All his success came from hustle. He's long, quick and gets the dirty points. He'll play in the NBA at some point if he continues to hustle and play humble. Troy Daniels and Canaan have a great rapport. The ball movement between them should be studied for Lin/Harden usage. They almost did enough to make the comeback. Canaan hit quite a few threes with just seconds to play. At least two and maybe three threes within the last 30 seconds. The last play of the game, Canaan was guarded tight, it might have been a foul, but he did get his shot off. It did miss. And the Vipers lost by two. I can't get that loss out of my system. I need to go back.
