Much of the NBA experience is about stuff on the periphery like the dancers, the mascots, the T-shirt cannons, the cacophony of noise from start to finish.
There was music blaring during the actual game, in-game hosts and hostesses running through myriad contests during timeouts. It was always loud. The noise was always there.
It was sensory overload at times, and the game wasn’t always the thing.
It’s not like that now — and the peace and quiet is weird.
It took Raptors coach Nick Nurse about a minute of his team’s first scrimmage in the relative quiet of an Orlando arena to feel just how different it was.