Turn off the house lights; it's time for the show. The Staples Center is hosting a popular performance this winter. A few of the stars of this show are Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom, and Andrew Bynum. "Lights Out!" It's time for the Lake Show.

Last Tuesday was my first trip to the Lake Show. The Los Angeles Lakers were taking on the Minnesota Timberwolves in this year's third edition of the show.

To the two teams, it was a game. To everyone else, it was a performance. Los Angeles loves their Lakers, but not the way that Boston loves their Red Sox, Montreal loves their Canadiens, or Pittsburgh loves their Steelers. To Los Angles the Lakers are all about the show, not the game.

Fans aren't quite as committed in Los Angeles as they are elsewhere. During the "National Anthem," the arena was only about half full. Many fans strolled in well past tip-off and didn't pack the house until the second quarter. Even then though, fans didn't seem overly excited by the play on the court. They were appreciative of every Laker basket and occasionally booed Minnesota's Kevin Garnett, but the deep-rooted love wasn't there.

The Lakers seem to be on friends with benefits terms with their fans. The fans get some thrills out of the team, but there is no invested passion if things don't turn out well. It is a far cry from the die-hard marriage that many east coast cities have with their respective teams. The Lakers provide their fans with entertainment, but the fans do not live or die with every win or loss.

The Staples Center provides three decks of suite boxes, more than the traditional two found in many other complexes across the nation. Suite boxes are designed for relaxation so that fans are not bothered by others. They are designed to cut down on loud crowd noise and never require a fan to stand to see the play; both factors that dampen the atmosphere of the game. At one end of the suite area, there is a large restaurant for fans. For these diners, the Lakers seem more just the dinner-time entertainment than the actual reason fans come out to the game.

During timeouts, the Laker girls further perpetuate the idea that it's all about the entertainment in Los Angeles. These girls change outfits at least once a quarter and provide the excitement that fans might not find on the court as the game sludges through the middle quarters.

As the Lakers pulled away from Minnesota, the girls showed off their black leather pants and skimpy, white, "Miller Lite" tops early in the third quarter. Later on, after Lamar Odom drained a ridiculous half-court three pointer as the shot-clock expired, the Laker girls were back in new outfits. Wearing tight, black cheerleading dresses trimmed in purple, the girls put on multiple dance routines to never-aired, suggestive, dance songs, like "Right Now" and "Bad Girl." At the end of which the announcer said in the most satisfied voice: "Laker Girls."

Besides the Laker Girls, the main excitement in the third quarter for Lakers fans was the celebrities on the big screen. Jack Nicholson and Chris Rock were both placed on the big screen late in the third quarter. In an utter mockery of Lakers fans, neither celebrity gave a wave of acknowledgement to the wild cheers from fans. The volume of these cheers were only approached once on the court during the quarter, despite a dominating performance by the Lakers. Those cheers came when Andrew Bynum stuffed Mike James with four minutes remaining in the third.

With the rare exception of a play like Bynum's, the crowd had to be inspired by music over the speakers to cheer during the game. Like a musician clapping to get the crowd into a concert, the speakers would blare "Put your hands together" or "Just make it clap" and play a drum beat that fans could clap to. The "D-fense!" cheer also had to be started over the speakers for the uninvolved fans.

Even in the fourth quarter when the Timberwolves came storming back into the game, fans watched the poor performance passively. In more involved cities, fans would have been livid to see the hometown team allow a twenty point lead to dwindle to four. However, Lakers fans met the disappointment only with some scattered boos. The notion of tossing rotten fruit for a bad performance never made it to Los Angeles.

So, with Minnesota trailing by four and closing that gap with 3:06 left, the Laker Girls were called on to bring the crowd into the game. During a Laker timeout, the girls were brought on to the court to get the crowd up and clapping. Techno music began playing, and the lights begin swirling around the stadium. The girls clapped to the beat and twirled around the court in their cheerleader outfits as fans prepared for the end of the suspenseful show.

In the last three minutes, the Lakers were able to fend off the Timberwolves and pull out a 95-88 victory. This brought a huge applause from fans. However, more so than winning, the applause was a result of the announcement that keeping the T-wolves below 90 points meant that every fan got two free tacos from Jack in the Box, a perfect encore for the show. This was no surprise considering one of the loudest cheers heard all night was "We Want Tacos!" with eight minutes left in the game, when it appeared the Lakers could hold Minnesota below 90.

Maybe I'm a little too harsh on Laker fans. After all, the fans come to the game to have fun, just like people go to dinner or a concert or a dance performance to have fun. Admittedly, I also found myself cheering for the free tacos. But, unlike most, I'm not a Lakers' fan, nor do I pretend to be. I was there to enjoy the experience, not cheer for the team. On Tuesday night, that would have been hard to tell, though, because I fit right in with everyone else in the Staples Center that was there for the entertainment and not the game. I assume most of them were Lakers fans, but I'm not sure I could tell the difference.

NOTE: This blog was written as an assignment for the Journalism 499: Sports Commentary class at the University of Southern California, taught by Joshua Adande.

The game was on November 7, 2006.

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