Wow. What an incredible game. Such an incredible night. I will never forget that one.
I was in SLO after the holidays to visit Tegan and Brittney. We drove up to SF Wednesday night. The game was Thursday night (1/4).
I really wanted to go, Tegan seemed a bit unsure. But Brittney was a gamer. We got seats in the nosebleeds (~$110). But… stress fracture for the win.
We walked in the door and immediately a staffer asked if I needed a wheelchair up to my seat. I didn’t want to be embarassed so turned him down but he kept pressing. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. And Brittney and Tegan told me I should take it.
So I hop in the wheelchair with this older guy scotty pushing, and he says he’s taking us the scenic route. We start heading underneath the stadium, passing by the courtside seats club area. I joke that he’s dropping us off courtside but unfortunately he doesn’t have that power.
It’s really cool going in the underbelly of the stadium. Seeing lots of concert posters (most of them probably from Oakland) and getting to talk with Scotty. He’s been there since that Chase Center opened in 2019. And everyone knows Scotty. I mean everyone.
We see front ticket checkers, elevator operators, kitchen staff, office personnel, everyone knows Scotty. He’s so friendly and tells us he’s always trying to spread love.
When we get up to the concourse up top, Scotty is pushing me and is like Moses. He is parting the sea of people. “EXCUSE ME! EXCUSE ME!” over and over, pushing me through the crowd.
We finally get to our section way up top and he asks what row our seats are in. “No way you’re getting up there,” says Scotty, “Sorry I didn’t ask about your seats downstairs, I could’ve gotten you into accessible seating”.
“Can you still?”
“I’ll see what I can do. Let’s go back down”
So Scotty parts the sea again. “EXCUSE ME! EXCUSE ME!” and we head back down to the ticket office.
We’ve got Scotty on our side, so he knows the right guy to bring us to. I’m showing him our tickets in the nosebleeds (not even all together and he is seeing what he can do.
“There’s no more room upstairs so I have to move you to the lower level”. Oh no. Tough luck, no more room upstairs.
So much shorter trip this time, Scotty brings all three of us to these ADA seats in the bottom section. Much better view and so lucky. This should be a great spot to see a hopefully great game.
And boy did it deliver.
This blog isn’t a game recap blog but I’ll give a quick rundown. The Warriors started off hot, early 10 point lead. The Nuggets battled back though and took the lead by 1 at the end of the 1st. The 2nd quarter went even better for the Nuggets and we were up by 7 at the half.
As a side note, I was impressed by the crowd here. I’m sure it was a lot of bandwagon fans in the beginning, but all this time into it they built up a solid fanbase. It was loud and the crowd brought it for a Thursday night in January (it is against the champs).
There were only a few Nuggets fans I saw nearby. There was one a few rows away that we kept making eye contact after big plays and he dapped me up going to the concourse.
Then the 3rd quarter came. It was 44-24 in favor of the Warriors. It was brutal. Nothing was going right. This continued into the 4th. The place was rocking, and with 6:51 left to play there was a timeout with the Warriors leading by 18. At this point, Scotty had come back to meet us and was comforting me by giving me a massage. The Nuggets fan I saw left at this point, pointing to his finger and saying at least we have a ring.
Then, Denver started chipping away. Slowly but surely until we were brought it to within 5 with 3 minutes left. And then after a huge P-Wat three it was down to a two point game with ~a minute left. I couldn’t believe it. We had a game.
After another Jokic bucket and forcing a Curry turnover, we had the ball out of a timeout with 3 seconds left. Likely overtime, but give it the best player on the planet and see what can happen. This happened…
(I don’t think I’m supposed to jump up and down while on crutches in the ADA seats)
UNREAL. I could not believe it. You can hear the excitement in our screams. In the defeat of the crowd. Jokic the GOAT banked in a 40 footer to win it at the buzzer. It capped off an amazing comeback. An amazing Nuggets win. And a special night overall. Shoutout to Scotty for making it special for us. To Tegan and Brittney for being gamers and coming with me. To the Nuggets for being the champs. And to Jokic. The best damn player in the world.
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