Comedian Chris Trew is a New Orleans Pelicans fan who has a single season ticket directly behind the visitors’ bench inside New Orleans’ Smoothie King Center, where he chats with and listens to the opposing team. He will be documenting some of his interactions with players and coaches here for us in a regular column called, Behind the Bench. You can follow his in-game interactions live on Twitter at @ChrisTrew. The Pelicans’ opponent in this column: the Houston Rockets.
Traditionally the home game during Mardi Gras is a tricky situation for New Orleans. Locals wait all year for Carnival season and when you put an NBA game just a couple of blocks from the parade route, it complicates travel to and from the game. Even the most die hard hoops fans consider taking the night off, so whenever the schedule gods toss an assist our way it’s always noticed.
Last year when Kobe Bryant played his final game in the Big Easy, for example, people still came out. The year before that when the talented but not very thrilling Indiana Pacers scooted through town during Mardi Gras, the arena was bare. This year was the debut of DeMarcus Cousins and the seats were mostly full which is remarkable considering the streets were also full with one of the more popular parades, Muses, going down simultaneously.
Everyone in the building knew we were here to witness the beginning of the Boogie era, but the Houston Rockets downplayed his arrival not only the entire game but in the beginning during player intros.
James Harden led the way by playing dumb about the trade, telling me that he didn’t even know the controversial center from Sacramento had been traded. The rest of the team followed suit and after his first basket as a New Orleans Pelican, the bench pretended to be surprised at the big man acquisition.
As the PA announcer belted out his first “DeMarcus Cousins!” the bench overreacted double takes as if they don’t have Woj trade alerts set on their phone. In terms of trash talking and a battle of the wits, this was perhaps the funniest way of dealing with being the first team facing the Kentucky duo.
The only people in a Houston uniform who were not in the goofing around mood were the former Louisiana residents playing their first game back, Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson, both of whom were booed relentlessly throughout the entire game. Gordon had to know it was coming as he never truly embraced the city (besides that one time he softly said “Yeah I think so” when I saw him riding on a pedicab on the way to the Super Bowl and asked him if he liked New Orleans). He was also coming off a win in the three point shootout held just a few days ago in the same building and decided he would just keep getting buckets.
While it was difficult to decipher whether his unfazed reaction to the booing is just the way he is naturally, Ryan Anderson couldn’t mask his surprise. The good guy sharpshooter turned heel sometime in the second quarter, dropping the warm smile and doubling down on side eyes towards the stands. Teammates even asked the duo “why are they booing you so much?”
Eric Gordon shrugged his shoulders and Ryan Anderson downplayed it. This reaction was quite fitting as Eric Gordon metaphorically shrugged his shoulders on the basketball court his entire career in New Orleans while after he left the team, Ryan Anderson essentially downplayed the opportunities he had here.
The halftime show at the game was “Mardi Gras” which featured every possible character in the Pelicans universe parading around the court and throwing actual beads into the crowd. When the Rockets came out for the third quarter I asked small forward Sam Dekker if he wanted some beads. He said yes, asked that I throw some to him, then he put what he caught in a gym bag. There’s nothing much else to say about this interaction besides I’m surprised he wanted the beads, and I wonder where those beads are and if Sam Dekker remembers me.
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Nene was tasked with guarding Cousins and was having issues. As he was sent to the bench in foul trouble, three or four of his teammates gave him advice. This was strange to me as the advice was coming from guys who were much shorter and much younger than him. Nene was frustrated in the way that it sucks when your uncle gives you bland advice on something they know nothing about but they want to take credit for helping you once you succeed. Like my Uncle Rick after he watches me do stand-up. Just an example.
I hope my Uncle Rick doesn’t read this column because I’m definitely talking about him.
When Omri Casspi badly missed a shot in the second half Trevor Ariza shouted “I guess that’s how they shoot in Europe” which didn’t make sense because Casspi is from Israel. I told Ariza this and he said “What?” but Lou Williams noticed and laughed. Since we had eye contact I thought about asking Lou what this was all about, but soon he checked into the game and tried to ruin Mardi Gras for everyone.
The Houston assistant coaches were downright giddy about adding Lou to their roster. They laughed every time he sank a shot in the way that a cartoon villain laughs every time they get stronger. There’s a way to taunt your opponent and rub the victory in their noses while still coming off high status – the Rockets coaches were for sure not acting like they had been there before.
The players, on the other hand, deserve a lot of credit for their taunting abilities. After starting the game pretending like they didn’t know about the Boogie trade, they finished it by assaulting every Pelicans fan and employee within earshot. “It’s a process! It’s the new process!” they kept screaming. Their volume turnt up as the point differential grew. The Houston Rockets won this game on and off the court, a decisive victory in all possible definitions of the word.
