Home Court

From Steve Kerr (via the often interesting King Kaufman in Salon)
we read this humorous anecdote, which I had not heard of because I was in Guam at the time for my grandparents 50th anniversary bash....
Yahoo! Sports - NBA - No place like home:

"When I was with the Bulls in the 1997 finals, the Utah Jazz came to Chicago for Games 1 and 2 and failed to register under assumed names at their hotel. On the morning of the first game, a local Chicago disc jockey decided it would be a good idea to give the Utah players wake-up calls – at 5 a.m. Whether lack of sleep was a factor or not, we won those two games at the United Center.


When we flew to Utah for the middle three games of the series, we were prepared for payback. Every player had an alias – I think I was Ruben Kincaid, the band manager from my favorite TV show as a kid, "The Partridge Family."

But the Jazz fans were one step ahead of us. Ruben Kincaid and the rest of the Bulls were startled out of our slumber at 5 a.m. by a marching band just outside our hotel windows. The Jazz won the next two games to even up the series. Coincidence? Of course it was.

No player on either team blamed early wake-up calls and marching bands for losing road games. But at the same time, it sure was nice to sleep comfortably in our beds when we returned to Chicago for Game 6, which we won to clinch the championship."