CaryEdmondson.com

Didn’t have a great shooting game last night during the Pistons win over the Kings. I had some decent shots but nothing really stood out to me. Tyreke Evans looked again as he dished out 13 assists to go along with his 28 points… but the Kings lost their fifth straight still aren’t looking too great… I think it was their 23rd loss in the last 27 games… not good. Hopefully they’ll get a win here soon.

So believe it or not I actually shot my first game at Oracle Arena last night. Our company doesn’t get as many passes to the Warriors game for some reason… so I was curious to see how well the arena was lit because I knew it couldn’t be as dark as it is in Sacramento. Right when I walked out to the floor I knew it was twice as good as my usual shooting conditions. There is more space to sit, I don’t have any feet from the fans kicking me in the back (the floor seats in Sacramento literally put the fans on the court… and if someone sitting behind me has long legs it can make for quite an interesting game), and to top it off the arena was lit great! This may not seem like too big of a deal to the everyday person, but to a photographer it makes a world of difference to have more light. Your camera focuses faster and the picture quality ends up making the pictures look twice as good as they do under dark shooting conditions. But anyways… as for the game itself… the Utah Jazz were in town and the game was a bit of a joke. The Jazz manhandled the Warriors, and Carlos Boozer looked like a giant man who was simply swatting flies out of his way whenever he tried to score or grab a rebound… he made the Warriors look pretty bad I have to admit. The Warriors had heart though and made a run at the end of the game, but they were just down by too many points and couldn’t do enough to get back in the game. Now I’m just hoping we get a few more passes approved before the end of the year because it was so easy to shoot the game. We’ll see what happens.

I think most basketball fans are scratching their heads when attempting to understand why the Celtics are having such a hard time winning as of recently. Either way… I was happy to see them in town to get some pictures of all the stars on their team. My sister made the trip up from Fresno as well… she’s a huge Kevin Garnett fan so my Christmas present to her this year was two tickets to the game. She came away satisfied as the Celtics sneaked by the Kings winning 95-92. But I can’t say the Celtics deserved a win because it felt more like the Kings just gave the game away at the end. The Kings missed crucial free throw after free throw and the Celtics players walked off the court with a huge sigh of relief after they left Arco with a win. My favorite shot of the night came before the game started when Garnett stared down the padding underneath the hoop before the start of the game. I know about some of the players routine in the league (… such as Lebron throwing up chalk before the start of each game)… but I wasn’t aware of Garnett’s routine… I just happened to seem him acting a little crazy and snapped a few pictures, making sure to keep the NBA logo in the frame since it might help for some sales later. But overall I think I shot a pretty good game and I’m curious to see if the Celtics wake up by the time the playoffs roll around.

Anyone who knows me well knows about my Steve Nash addiction… so needless to say you can imagine how excited I was to see the guy play up close for a change. Just to give you an idea as to how excited I was… on Wednesday I was running on the treadmill at the gym while the Suns game was on tv and I kept screaming for them to pull Nash from the game in the fourth quarter to make sure he’d be healthy for today’s game (… well, I wasn’t screaming out-loud… but I was screaming pretty loud in my head). I’ve only had a chance to photograph Nash once before and that was during a preseason game against the Lakers when I lived in Las Vegas, NV. I didn’t really have too many opportunities to shoot him since it was a preseason game and they pulled him relatively early. So tonight I was focused and ready to get a great shot of Nash to add it to my collection… but I found out just how hard it was to get a great shot of him! The main problem was that his shot was on target so he never really drove to the hoop… he just kept hitting his outside shots. Aside from his shooting… he was hard to follow. I don’t know if it was just one of those nights but it was hard to separate him from the crowd of players… he always seemed to set himself in positions where it was really crowded before running off a screen and either pulling up for a shot or delivering a pass. I thought I was going to come away empty handed for the most part until midway through the third quarter when he ran over to the baseline and leaped in the air to save a ball that was going out of bounds. After that happened… I could finally relax for a bit knowing I got a decent shot to go home with. Although Nash had a great game, Amare Stoudemire was the one who made all the highlights later. I couldn’t believe it when I saw him throw down three straight dunks against the Kings in the third quarter… he could not be stopped. But it’s time to hit the road now… can’t wait to see the Celtics next!