Rhod and Anna's World Adventure

We have ticked off yet another sport in our round the world adventure. This time it's basketball. I thought I should explain as it is perhaps not clear from the attached photo what the game is.

I'm not normally super complimentary about US sport but basketball is good. It's an all action 48 mins with any time-outs or breaks livened up by the cheer leaders and many other exciting events such as bubble cam that picks people out in the crowd and distorts their faces. Very funny but I expect you have to see it to really appreciate it.

We watched the LA Lakers play the Toronto Raptors. The LA Lakers were led by probably the only current basketball player that any of us could name before the game, Kobe Bryant. Come to think of it he is probably the only basketball player we can name now.

The game ended LA 107 Toronto 100 which is very close. I did wonder why they bothered with the first 3 quarters of the game. They started the last quarter level on points and it was a whole lot more active than the previous 36 mins. That might explain why most of the seats are empty for the first quarter. People seem to be more focused on getting food and drink (not beer I would like to point out as it was an extortionate $10 a pint!) than watching the game. It still amazes me that 48 mins of sport can take over 2 hours to complete but I am getting used to it.

Man of the match was Kobe Bryant but it's not called man of the match over here it's called most valuable player. I don't know why this annoys me but it does. Maybe I'm just intolerant. It gets worse when the crowd, who for most of the game are silent apart from the sound of chewing and slurping, chant MVP...MVP...MVP every time the MVP touches the ball. Still it's better than USA...USA...USA.

We now need to hunt down some American Football to complete the set.