July 26, 2020

 

I have a scrimmage to cover today.  At four o’clock, it’s the Pacers against the Mavericks.  We will be sending the signal to both markets and they will make their own broadcasts back in their respective markets. Unlike your normal broadcast, each team will not have their own production crews creating their own unique broadcast.  They will have to settle with whatever we provide them.  We can’t hear their announcers so rather than us following their commentary, they will have to follow our visuals.

Do you ever watch a game, any game, and the announcer says a person’s name, and instantly that person appears on the screen?  That’s because we hear what the announcers are speaking about and if our camera is not on air, we scramble to find that person so we can add to the story.  Of course, we only try to find people that are in the arena or stadium.  There is a running joke that if the announcers mentions someone that is dead, or not in the arena, you get $100 if you can “shoot” that person.  That joke never gets old.

But for these telecasts, there is no following the announcers.  We shoot what we think is important after the action stops, and pretty much tell our own story.  We have all been doing this long enough that everything we shoot is pretty pertinent to the story of the game.

We are supposed to be on site at 12:30 pm for a 4:00 pm game.  Sure, that seems pretty early considering everything is set up, but we need to do an equipment check, have lunch, shoot the players warming up, and feed any other imagery we can down the line for the other networks to build packages from.  However, when we go inside our arena, the HP Fieldhouse, there is another scrimmage taking place, the Sixers against the Thunder.  ESPN is covering that game, and we can’t check out our equipment until that scrimmage is over.  And that game is only in the first quarter.  So it’s off to the green lunch area.

One thing that I have noticed that is pretty consistent with buildings in Orlando is the temperature is kept at a comfortable meat locker temperature.  It is always so cold in any building I venture in, including the arenas.  I am constantly going from the warm, humid exterior to the frigid, air conditioned interior.  I just don’t understand why the indoor temperatures are set so low.  Even when housekeeping leaves my room, the employee messes with my thermostat and drops it to 65 degrees.  That is cold in my book.  I always have to bump it back up to around 70 to 72.

We have a long, leisurely lunch and after getting tired of trying to stay warm, I decided to venture outside and find a bench in the shade to kill the rest of the time until I can get into the arena and do what we expected to do at 1pm.  It is wonderful outside.  The clouds are building like they do every day readying for yet another glorious thunderstorm.  The wind starts to increase, I can hear thunder in the distance.  Luckily, my bench is underneath a rather lengthy eave so as the raindrops begin to fall, I am out of their path and I can enjoy this storm in a dry setting. It doesn’t last long, but it is a rather drenching rain, and it stops in time for me to walk back to the HP Fieldhouse in time for fax and pre-records.

The scrimmage is simply that.  The strategy used by both coaches is to simply have their regular rotation of players compete during the first half and then have a mixture of players that usually don’t see that much playing time get experience under this unique setting.  It was very easy for me to identify the regulars, but took some time to readily pick out the reserves as the director called for them sparingly.  This dress rehearsal for the upcoming season, which is only 4 days away, was beneficial for all involved.  I was ready to call it a day after this match was over.  However, even though I was not on the schedule for the scrimmage that followed, I was asked to remain in order to allow the director and producer to get a better idea of full crew coverage from this court.  I didn’t mind, although it was going to make it an eleven and a half hour day as opposed to a six and one half hour day.

The nightcap was the Rockets against the Grizzlies.  James Harden is so good.  His shot is almost impossible to stop, because if you get right up on him, he will go around you.  If you lay off, even just a bit, he will shoot that dagger of a three of his.  When he penetrates, he will play off your defense, or lack of it.  He has great vision and can hit the open man at the very last moment.  He is a pleasure to watch, but no way is he in game shape right now.  He’s got 4 days to work on that, but even out of shape, he is hard as hell to guard.

The same strategy was employed by the coaching staffs for this game as was the last.  But there was a lot more complaining with the referees.  You can get a good sense of the competitors these players are because even in a scrimmage where the result has zero consequence they wanted every call to go their way.  In fact, there was a little too much complaining for me but it did assist with me getting the game duration correct.

Matt Lipp, our director for this game, likes to liven things up by throwing out a variety of wagers for everyone to participate in.  Like, will the jump ball to start the game be tossed before or after the scheduled time?  And these events in a live broadcast are supposed to happen at the scheduled time.  Well, the main bet for this game was whether the game would end before 10:18 pm.  Unbelievably, half the crew chose before 10:18 but I opted for after 10:18.  With all the complaining that was taking place, I knew I was a shoo in to get this one right.

The game ended at 10:22 pm and we headed for the bus to take us back to the resort after we secured our equipment and made sure everything was where it needed to be.  It was a long day, but it felt good to be back doing what I love to do.  As far as my upcoming schedule shows, I have four days off until I work again.  The restart begins in four days, and I am not scheduled that day.  My first game of the restart won’t be until Friday July 31.  What will I do between now and then?