Basketball stars come to Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, the Cleveland Cavaliers want to be your NBA team. They don’t want to move here,… Pittsburgh, the Cleveland Cavaliers want to be your NBA team. They don’t want to move here, but it seems they would very much like if you’d consider pledging your fandom to them. Tuesday night, the Cavaliers played their fourth preseason game in the past five years in Pittsburgh, but for the first time, the game took place at the Petersen Events Center. Every other time, the team played at Mellon Arena. This year, Cleveland faced the defending champion Boston Celtics. The Cavaliers tried their hardest to make it a home game, as Cleveland is only about two hours away from Pittsburgh. They brought along their mascot, Moondog, their cheerleaders and dance team and their in-arena announcer, Ahmaad Crump, who wouldn’t need a microphone for nearly everyone in an arena to hear him yell, but uses one anyway. Furthering hope that Pittsburghers would don the wine and gold, anytime Crump mentioned the team, they weren’t ‘the Cleveland Cavaliers,’ but ‘your Cleveland Cavaliers.’ At one point he wanted the fans to cheer for their hometown team, but felt it necessary to include the current town the team was playing in by saying: ‘Come on Pittsburgh, Pa., cheer for your hometown team.’ The game didn’t sell out, like many men’s games at the Pete since it opened in 2002, but a majority of the 12,500 seats in the arena were filled. It was a calmer side of the Petersen Events Center, without one overwhelming rooting interest or the Oakland Zoo to create the loud frenzy associated with basketball games that take place at the arena. Those who went saw a close game, with the Celtics winning, 90-86. LeBron James played just less than 18 minutes, all in the first half, scoring 12 points. Daniel Gibson led the Cavaliers with 14 points, followed by Jawad Williams, who had 13. Boston’s Kevin Garnett played just less than 20 minutes, while Paul Pierce and Ray Allen both played more than 20. Garnett scored 11 points and had seven rebounds, while Pierce netted 14, and Allen scored 15. Leon Powe led Boston with 17 points and rejected a layup attempt by Vernon Hamilton with about four seconds left that would’ve tied the game at 88. Even though it was technically a Cavaliers home game, Pitt was featured predominately throughout the night. Around the arena and in the team store at the front entrance of the building, a few Cleveland items could be purchased, but Panther gear was still much more prevalent. Two of the biggest receptions of the night came from showing Pitt coach Jamie Dixon and the men’s and women’s basketball teams on the big screen, with DeJuan Blair getting the loudest reaction when the camera panned to him. While fans cheered throughout the game, along with the Pitt players, the T-shirt toss excited the crowd more than either team. Then again, it was watching a preseason game, albeit a preseason game between the league’s marquee player, James, and the defending league champs, the Celtics. Although the crowd mostly favored the Cavaliers, the Celtics certainly weren’t underrepresented. Smatterings of green shirts and jerseys could be seen in nearly every section of the Pete. It certainly didn’t have the feeling of a Pitt-Georgetown game as far as the crowd goes, but the players on both sides showed some intensity. In the third quarter, Garnett swatted a shot attempt by Anderson Varejao out of bounds and proceeded to yell at him. Varejao looked toward Garnett, and the two came nose-to-nose. They exchanged words that probably weren’t tips on hair styling, where to buy pants for extremely tall men or what to order at the O after the game. When Garnett left the court after the next substitution, he was greeted with a loud cheer from the fans, as he was most of the night. Along with James, Garnett was easily the most popular player on the court, in terms of fan reaction and jerseys worn to the game. ‘I thought we were received well,’ said Cleveland coach Mike Brown. ‘The fans seemed to get a kick out of the game, and that’s what you want [when you play at a neutral site].’ Brown, along with Varejao, thought playing in Pittsburgh was an opportunity for the team to help extend its fan base. ‘It was a great experience,’ said Varejao. While it’s a nice thought ‘mdash; Cleveland and Pittsburgh merging as one to cheer on the same team ‘mdash; it would certainly be a conflict that needs work. Possibly the biggest reaction from the crowd appeared when Moondog came out during a break in the action wearing a Cleveland Browns jersey. He was quickly pelted with deafening boos, until he took off the jersey to reveal a Steelers shirt. ‘The Cleveland-Pittsburgh rivalry is definitely alive,’ said Brown. Even if it was just a preseason game, the fans that went seemed to enjoy themselves, and it gave them the opportunity to see something they might not normally get to without having to travel a bit. James supported the trip to Pittsburgh for the same reasons as Brown and Varejao. ‘A lot of people don’t get to see us live,’ said James. ‘So to be able to come here and go to Columbus or go to Providence where there are no NBA teams, to be able to go there and play the game of basketball in front of these fans, it’s great.’