My last playoff trip to San Antonio was the 2006 playoffs.  That was an exciting series!  It epitomized the San Antonio Spur-Dallas Mavericks rivalry.  Five out of the seven games were decided in the last minute including an incredible game 7 overtime win. On the downside, with great rivalries of powerhouse teams often come boorish fans.  As we exited the AT&T Center after a game, I  found myself being harassed and threatened by drunken Spurs fans. That is not  an indictment of San Antonio or its fans, it can happen at any arena.  It however is an unfortunate experience that  stands out from the trip that caused some apprehension leaving the AT&T Center last night.

The Mavs ultimately went on to the NBA finals where we unfortunately lost to the Miami Heat in a what many view as a historic collapse from which the Mavs have never recovered.

That was 2006-2007.  A different Mavs team.  A different Spurs team.  A different Western Conference.  The road trip to The AT&T Center in San Antonio for game 1  of the 2008-9 playoffs was markedly different in almost every area.  The Mavs and Spurs are both older teams.  Both have game-plan altering injuries to starters. The fans at the AT&T Center this time around were without exception, friendly courteous and respectful of our team allegiance.  The biggest difference from 2006-7?   I was Twittering.  Other Mavs fans were twittering.   Spurs fans were twittering. The national media was twittering.  We were twittering the pre-game. We were twittering the National Anthem. We were twittering our fears and excitement with the ebb and flow of the game.  We  were “trash-twittering”.   In addition to twittering the game,  I also “Twitpic’d“  the game.  The camera deficiency  of my iPhone made it difficult to get any good shots but it was fun to give the people with who I “twitteract” real time context of the trip.  This included photos of Mark’s G-V on which  I was fortunate to get to travel to the game.  It included our brief tour of the River Walk.  It included the suite where we all sat and enjoyed the game.

I interacted  with  tweeters around the world who shared  not always my enthusiasm for the Mavs but the Spurs as well and simply enjoyed the instantaneous “power of the tweet”.  Tweeting the excitement of the moment was almost as much entertainment as the game itself.  Many tweeters were at work or places that they did not have access to the game or scores.  They were getting their  information on the game solely from my tweets. I was having so much tweet fun that  I found myself getting just as anxious and agitated about the battery drain on my iPhone as as I was about game score. I had to intermittently  shut down the phone to conserve tweets for important game moments and observations.  When the game ended I was able to tweet the Mavs victory news across the twitter universe.  Many others did as well.  I suspect that post game, Mark Cuban tweeted his game thoughts. Mavs and Spurs players tweeted their thoughts, National media tweeted theirs.. Think any refs tweeted?

The NBA has gone from “Love It Live” to  “Tweet It Live”.   It adds another dimension of fan experience to the game.  I hope the NBA embraces it.