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 intently listens to and interacts with the opposing team’s players and coaches. He will be documenting his experiences here for us in a regular column called, Behind the Bench. The Pelicans’ opponent in this column: the Detroit Pistons, who visited New Orleans on Monday, January 8th.
You can follow his in-game interactions live on Twitter at @ChrisTrew.
Detroit came to town on a night where the people of New Orleans had to push a little harder on their heels to get on their feet. A night where every throat in the city was sore from the previous day’s NFL home playoff game against the Carolina Panthers. A night where the Pistons, a team sans superstar, momentum, and history with the Pelicans, are in the building, on a dreary New Orleans night.
The Senior Citizen Dance Team is most definitely in the building, though, and they are having none of that. They are here to start their routines off cold and slow as they hook you in to an “oh isn’t that sweet” moment before they peel off a layer or two and turn it up to hot and fast(er). At least one Piston was distracted:
https://twitter.com/christrew/status/950543581063901184
Pistons assistant coach Aaron Gray is still very down to talk about how much he is revered in New Orleans. After coming out of the locker room I asked him if he had some good food while he was in town, and he gave me a look that was like “girrrrrrrrl.”
Then we talked about the only thing we’ve ever talked about — how when he played for the New Orleans Hornets he was somehow this big stick of Dwight Howard kryptonite. He just never let Dwight do Dwight things in Louisiana. He told me how several people in the building won’t let him forget about it, and it makes him smile every time.
Stan Van Gundy sure does get away with a lot of referee banter. I’ve never seen a coach get so much attention from an official without drawing any technical foul calls. “Stan, I heard you” was on repeat for most of the night, increasing in intense annoyance every single time. That said, Van Gundy is easily on the Mount Rushmore of “entertaining coaches to sit behind.”
New Orleans lost crowd favorite Langston Galloway in the DeMarcus Cousins trade last year. He’s less “local hero” and more “lovable local-ish,” as he grew up in Baton Rouge, which is about an hour and some change west of the The Big Easy (if you’re lucky with traffic). He earned a DNP tonight, but when he exited the arena post-game, he was basically leading a second line of Louisiana relatives decked out in Pistons gear. Regardless of not earning a turn on the court tonight, five years in the league plus growing up down I-10 gets you a decent amount of love from the Smoothie King Center security and staff.
The New Orleans Saints had, as mentioned, beat the Carolina Panthers in the playoffs the night before, and after telling Langston that we miss him and we hope he’s doing well, I chose to replace a selfie request with a “Who Dat?” Galloway replied, “We making a run, aren’t we?”
Meanwhile, Andre Drummond is the only other member of the Detroit Pistons organization that shows any semblance of a good time. After catching his eye before introductions, we talked about beards and beard oil. He flashed that 7-footer smile, then he went about his business getting humiliated by DeMarcus Cousins.
After the game, a crowd of reporters attempted to interview Boogie about his stellar fourth-quarter performance in a Pelicans win, but Alabama came back to shock the Georgia Bulldogs in overtime. This happened on a television screen, in the New Orleans locker room, and it was very charming regardless of where your rooting loyalties lie.
My final note from the evening: I never found out which player on the Pistons bench kept making the “Toasty!” noise from Mortal Kombat throughout the game — but I want you to know that someone was.
Read past Behind The Bench columns here.
