Prior to the start of yesterday afternoon's game against the Warriors, the Knicks announced that there would be no music, video or in-game entertainment during the first half, so fans could "experience the game in its purest form."
As expected, just about everyone hated it, especially Draymond Green who said it was "pathetic," "ridiculous," and "completely disrespectful."
Per EPSN,
"That was pathetic," Green said after his team's 112-105 win.
"It was ridiculous. It changed the flow of the game. It changed everything. You get used to playing a certain way. It completely changed it. To me, I think it was completely disrespectful to everyone from [NBA senior VP of entertainment and player marketing] Michael Levine to [Warriors president and COO] Rick Welts and all these people who've done these things to change the game from an entertainment perspective."
"[It] gives the game a great vibe. That's complete disrespect. You advance things in the world to make it better. You don't go back to what was bad. It's like, computers can do anything for us. It's like going back to paper. Why would you do that? So it was ridiculous."
"Did you see that first half?" he asked. "It was just bad, sloppy, all over the place. There was no rhythm to the game. All this stuff makes a difference in a game, believe it or not. You get in a rhythm. ... You turn on music, it just helps you get into a certain area, takes you to a certain place. I don't think they were doing it to, like, throw us off, but it definitely threw the entire game off. They need to trash it. That's exactly what they need to do."
Steph Curry and Steve Kerr also added that the first half was weird without any music or in-game entertainment; Kerr compared the atmosphere to a church and Curry noted that it reminded him of middle school warm-ups.
Knicks players echoed those statements, including Courtney Lee who said it didn't do anything to help New York's home court advantage, despite the fact that they went into the half up by a point.
Via ESPN,
"It was kind of weird because that's home-court advantage -- having the crowd involved, having the music going and having that energy behind you," Courtney Lee said.
"Imagine if we had that energy?" Lee said. "You'd rather have that. It gets the fans into the game, it keeps them in tune with what's going on as opposed to it being quiet."