The Captain is at it again. This time our disgruntled Philadelphia 76ers producer friend caught him. “The website said you only had five.” Apparently, the Captain had alleged double-digit rebounds against the Knicks. He usually makes a beeline for the scorer’s table after the horn sounds, so it is a reasonable assumption that he would know an accurate total. Generally best, however, to take what he says and divide by three. The credulity with which he processes the claims of Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly he doesn’t always extend to his own stat sheet. “I could have sworn I had at least 15 boards!” Though it is generally bad basketball karma to be too involved in the numbers game, English was in a situation where he could have benefited from such cognizance, coming one rebound and one assist away from the league’s first triple-double.
Against the Sacramento Kings our starters were able to put up good numbers because we didn’t have much of a bench. B3 was still in the running on Dancing With the Stars. Bigs didn’t bother to show, because he was upset that he didn’t get enough playing time against the Knicks and in that game stormed off the court before it finished. The Captain, in an effort to soothe Bigs’ distemper, had promised an increase in minutes, which I guess wasn’t enough of a carrot. Date Show Host was AWOL. Music Producer was working on a project in Minneapolis. So it was our starters and New York, a rotation of six guys.
From the opening tip, we pounced on the Kings. The Silver Fox was unconscious, hitting his first seven shots. English was racing up and down the court. During one stretch Coach’s Son could not miss a 3-pointer. His form was perfect. Catch, raise, shoot. He just kept bombing from the outside, stacking triple after triple. When it was all said and done he had seven 3-pointers. At the end of the first half we were up by 25 points. By midway through the second half we went up over 30. It was, frankly, a stats-padding frenzy. A massive land grab. Forty-niners panning for scoring gold. Everyone wanted in on the action and the Kings simply couldn’t offer any resistance. They turned the ball over, they were slow on defense, and they didn’t rebound well. Lambs to the slaughter. Coach’s Son had a wolfish grin and said, “Guys, I’ve found my rhythm. Look out.” He hasn’t exactly been shy about shooting to this point, so I can only imagine with his impressive performance what will happen in the games to follow.
If there was little drama in our contest, there was much in the game that followed. Some players take the league very, very seriously. One singer from a platinum-selling hip-hop trio flies in every Sunday from Atlanta just for the game. (When I was shooting a TV pilot in New York, I wanted to get back to play in the league, but the swimming pools, deep tans, and social isolation of L.A. were also a draw.) On this Sunday, a member of the Phoenix Suns took the game a bit too seriously and melted down in a psychotic episode. Upset at a call, he tried to bum-rush the ref who made it. He was held back and much profanity-laced yelling ensued. His movie-star girlfriend, Jessica Alba, was in the stands and is the reason he is in the league, since he doesn’t act/sing/produce/agent. As beautiful as Alba is, and in person she is as attractive as she is on screen, she can’t really act all that well, which puts her in the enviable position of being paid to simply look like Jessica Alba. When you’re Jessica Alba and you have to show up at call time as Jessica Alba, it’s not a hard gig. Now I’m not complaining, and certainly not after renting Into the Blue and seeing the sublime underwater cinematography, the camera seemingly caught in the magnetic fields of her posterior’s corona. Her booty is ridonkulous. An Arriflex loves it like the Castro loves Margaret Cho. Like crazy loves Björk. I thought Alba also displayed admirable poise when asked by frothing, lunatic E! correspondent Isaac Mizrahi at the Golden Globes whether she had on any underwear. She responded that she was wearing a bodysuit under her dress. “No one’s going to see this nana.”
No one save your referee-assaulting boyfriend.
After he was physically restrained from attacking the referee, he was ejected from the game and stalked off with Alba. Then, 10 minutes later, he busted back in the gym and tried to go after the referee again. Shades of Latrell Sprewell and P.J. Carlesimo. Because of the chaos, the game was called. Days later, the commissioner handed down his sentence: a two-game suspension. It wasn’t exactly a Ron Artest banishment. Still, with the boyfriend’s apparent anger-management issues and our team’s very aggressive play, it should make for an interesting game when we play the Suns.