Memphis Trip II - - Game and post-game

I'm going to avoid doing too much re-capping cause it's been done so well already. Suffice it to say this game was even more ugly in person. Besides that it was probably on of the worst officiated games I ever witnessed, and I think I've never seen a good one. Fortunately the last questionable call worked to the favor of Portland - -That  last shot Travis took he took at least 3 steps if not 4...of course how much him getting smashed across the chest had to do with the movement is hard to determine...looked like that third step was all him though..

Some of the early fouls on Greg & Joel were invisible...the non calls on a couple of LaMarcus drives were insane.  The offensive foul call on Channing was rediculous. There were a more than a few on the other side, too I just don't remember them as well. I sat with a drummer I met out here and took to the last game - - big Grizzly fan - - and he and I were taking turns complaining - - but both agreed that it was summarily awful.

Now that I got that off my chest, onto the rest of it.

The place was so empty at the beginning of the game that I swore I could hear crickets. It filled up some later, and I gotta give a hand to the Grizzly fans that were present cause they made ALOT of noise in the fourth quarter. The music that they play in between is piercingly loud - - probably exceeds and legal decibel limit that a reasonable place would allow, but Beale St is completely without reason. I spent some time listening to some music at a club there tonight (lost track of the Outlaw's after the post game), but got tired of fending off the panhandlers and hookers so I came back to my room.

Took too many pictures to look at them all now, but I'm gonna put up some Outlaw and a Lamarcus cause they weren't represented in the other post. I'll pick some out of the rest, but it will probably take a couple of days cause I tend to use up all my free time on these trips and gotta go back to being husband, father & doctor at least till the weekend .. :-)

Travis was again well represented - - not as massively as last game, but it was significant. All the folks I spoke with last time were all happy to see me - - we were running into each other around the place...

Got to actually spend some time with Travis and his family at the post game this time mostly cause I was already there talkin with them when he came out. They are without a doubt an amazingly fun-loving, close-knit bunch. I may have to get to this year's Travis Outlaw Day in Starkville just because I'll miss them by then.

Trav spent some time with same little fella

I was privy to a talk between Monty and Trav's mom where she was thanking Monty for all the work he's doing with Trav . ."...especially the foul shots -- except tonight !"

Greg works on his jump shot while the Spanish Contingent catches up at halfcourt.. The vibration you felt was the shudder of the collective rest of the NBA while they considered Greg Oden with a jump shot...

Mike Barret was kind enough to invite me down to the media table...this is a picture of their "command central"

The "Player of the Game" gets a special ride to the airport