As far as i know, the Celtics have been in a bit of a slump since the 80's, and things don't appear to be changing this year.

It was reasonably even for most of the game, Paul Pierce, the Celtics star player trading blows with Jason Kidd, the Nets key man, but you had the feeling that the Nets could finsih the game off whenever they fancied, and sure enough they did.

Despite the Celtics not being one of the top teams in the league the quality of play was incredible, intricate spin moves and dribbles were being executed at the drop of a hat, and there were dunks-a-plenty, "Boom-Shacka-Lacka" indeed.

The poor old Riders were doing even worse than the Celtics, and the game i went to see was game 27 in a horrendous 28 game losing streak, broken just the other day.

They kept it close for the first half, but as soon as the Chester Jets went into a decent lead, heads dropped, and the writing was on the wall. A late rally gave us a little bit of hope, but that was soon snuffed out by an unforced turnover with a minute to go.

There were some good players on the court, who showed flashes of quality, but there was a complete lack of dunks, alley-oops etc, and at no point was i tempted to shout, "Ramma-lamma-ding-dong" in an NBA Jam commentator style.

The Fleet Center was an awesome sight. From outside it looks like a multi storey aircraft hangar, and from inside it's like a Shopping Mall that exclusively sells Junk food, Beer and Baskeball merchandise. (Most of your fellow Basketball fans walk around with shoe box sized cardboard trays chock full of chips, piss weak beer and bits of chickens that look like they've seen better days)

We had to take about 6 flights of escalators to our seats (No pesky stairs for the yanks!) and so although we weren't as close to the action as we could have been we had the best view in the house of the highly impressive Jumbo Megatron thingy, pictured below.

This scoreboard may not look like much, but i can assure you that it's a huge improvement over the things the Riders used to have at Granby Halls. Not to mention the 'shot clocks' that used to break down at least twice during each game, usually causing controversy galore.

And to get to your seats at the Loughborough Uni gym, usually requires at most 6 steps, rather than 6 flights of steps.

The only other item of technology in use, more advanced than a digital watch, is the small HiFi used to play very old Will Smith tapes during time outs. I am happy to say it worked reliably throughout.

Lucky the Leprechaun, the Celtics mascot had been prancing around the sides of the court for most of the 1st half, but really came into his own during half time.

Using a trampoline for slight assistance, he attempted to recreate some of the more spectacular dunks from NBA Jam, which believe me, are fairly spectacular. They all involve several somersaults, and Lucky had to have the padded mat put down so he didn't brain himself, or leave craters in the court, when he landed (though worryingly he actually missed it after one attempt.)

The picture below shows him mid dunk, passing the ball under his legs before slamming it home, to the delight of all present. In fact come to think of it, the crowd did seem more impressed by Lucky's half time antics than by most of the match itself.

However, during time outs he did an annoying mime routine, to attempt to whip the crowd out of it's stupour, and by tempting them with free, shoddy merchandise, so points have been deducted for that.

Well, there's certainly no Lucky at the Riders, but they attempt to make up for it in other ways.

Firstly, as a warm up, the world's youngest cheerleaders, do the world's shortest cheerleader routine.

Then, onto the main attraction - The Raffle! For a tin of Quality Street!! And a Cheap Bottle of Plonk!!! Get in!!!!

As i recall, Blue 85 won the star prize of the wine, and a very happy chap he was too.

Once that was over and done with, it was back to the Will Smith records, er, boom shake the room, and stuff.

Accuse me of vote rigging if you will, but i'd say it's ended in an honourable draw between the two codes of Basketball. Which you'd prefer pretty much comes down to whether you'd want to watch the world's best basketball players from a high altitude seat, while eating a tray of Chicken & Chips, or alternatively, watching a bunch of not bad basketball players, from courtside, with the opportunity to win a bottle of Jacobs Creek at halftime thrown in too.