Thursday, December 23, 1993
Los Angeles Lakers @ Miami Heat
Miami Arena - Miami, FL
Seats: section 124, row L, seats 1 - 2
Results: Heat defeat Lakers, 109 - 92 [Basketball-Reference]
Photo Gallery
The only basketball game I have ever been to was 20 years ago today. Someone that my Dad worked with gave us two tickets to the Miami Heat vs. Los Angeles Lakers on the night before Christmas Eve. It was one of the most fun and memorable nights I ever spent with my father, and one we still joke about to this day.
It really wouldn't make sense to anyone but he and I, but one of the funniest memories I have of that night happened at the end of one of the quarters. Someone threw up a shot that either didn't go in or hadn't been shot until after the buzzer. Over the speakers, we heard: "No basket. Naaaooooooo basket!". The announcer dragged out the word "no" to a ridiculous level. Dad and I looked at each other and burst out laughing like a couple of lunatics. Everyone sitting around us must have thought we had lost our minds. We didn't say a word because we knew we were thinking the exact same thing. My grandmother (his mother) would dramatically shout the word "no" in that same exact manner when she was in one of her moods. In the twenty years since this game, Dad and I must have said "Naaaooooooo basket" to each other at least a hundred times.
Another funny memory we have of that night was one of the little games they play with the crowd. I can't remember the game - something like a cartoon race on the big screen, or something along those lines. The announcer said that our section had won, and each person would receive a free Miami Heat Croakie. Without missing a beat, Dad looked at me and said "What the hell is a croakie?" A few people sitting near us thought that was hysterical, and they explained to both of us that it's an elastic band that you stick on your glasses. I still have mine to this day, and I never once put it on my glasses. I'm still not clear about what it's for.
