The NBA playoffs have started again, which begins the end of my favorite 6 months of sports.  Starting in January with the NFL playoffs, right through March madness, into what now should be called April Madness (nfl draft), and on down until there aren't any legitimate sports to watch by the end of June.  Now, some people might argue that baseball is a legitimate sport, and i'm not going into the reasons it is not, right now.  Let's just suffice to say that i'd rather spend a day watching re-runs of the 1997 F-1 race from Germany then I would watch a baseball game on TV. 

So back to the NBA playoffs.  Growing up in Sacramento during the Waymon Tisdale/Mitch Richmond era, we didn't get to see much playoff basketball.  Much is a liberal term I guess, maybe I should have used the term "any".  That didn't keep me from being a fan.  I had lived in Portland during the Clyde years and went to a game or two the year Isiah and Laimbeer beat "my" Blazers.  The back story to all this is that even when the Kings were bad, Arco was always loud, crazy, fun.  Just like the two years in Portland.   So I was used to the wild loud atmosphere.  Flash forward to April 27th 2006.  I'm now in Denver, and somehow have become a Nuggets fan.  I know there are some people who will call me a traitor, but the Kings still have a place in my heart.   I've spent the last 3 seasons rooting for these Nuggets, the Carmelo Nuggets.  I've been to countless games, and haven't missed a home playoff games the last couple years.  I'm like the Kenyon Martin of fans, I do my best cheering in the playoffs.  So, that being said, Thursday the 27th of April 2006 was the worst atmosphere at any NBA game that I've ever experienced.  Yes, it's fun to boo Sam Cassell.  It's fun to wonder who style's Chris Kaman's hair, is it the same guy that does Dirk and Nash's?  I sometimes wonder where a guy like Mike Dunleavy get's that snazzy pinstriped suit, or how long it took Shaun Livingston to braid his hair.  I guess what i'm getting at, was I didn't really wonder about basketball.  Now, perhaps it was because the Nuggets shot 38% and were 0-11 from the 3 pt line.  But I think the real reason was the crowd, and those lousy thundersticks.  The atmosphere in arena's just isn't what it used to be.  Are people not excited anymore?  Has the NBA lost the  "it's Faaaantastic" appeal?  Maybe it was just one game, but I expected the Denver fans to scare the daylights out of all the playoff rookies from LA.  But it never happened.  Maybe everyone was too worried about who the Broncos are going to draft to care.  I'm going back Saturday night to find out.