Royalty w/o 12/24 in review

Monday on Christmas Eve, I went to work until 1PM. I decided to hang around the office so I could catch up on some personal things since I had some free time to do for a change.

I was starting to look ahead for what 2013 has in store. For me, spare time is so hard to find. So I need to take advantage of any opportunity that I'm presented with.

After I left the office, I came home to get things together in the house. After I was home a short time, the King said he was going to see his mother. He said I'm welcome to join him. So I did. Unfortunately his mother hadn't been feeling well. However we did spend some time with her but it wasn't easy seeing her the way she was. After spending some time with her, we went back home for the night. I made dinner and I got to catch up on things I needed to do in the house.

Tuesday on Christmas Day, the King and I went to Brooklyn to the Barclays Center where the Nets were hosting the Boston Celtics in a matinee affair. It was the first of five NBA games to be played on the holiday. In years past, the Knicks have hosted a number of games on Christmas Day. Most recently, last season they played the Celtics which turned out to be the opening game of the season due to the lockout which delayed the start of the season.

Back in 2010, the Knicks played the Chicago Bulls on a Saturday afternoon on Christmas Day. After the game, I took a flight to Chicago to see the Jets play the Bears on Sunday and the Blackhawks played the Columbus Blue Jackets that night. It was memorable because I got to meet up with some fellow roadtrippers who were living there at the time. I'm referring to Andrew Van Cleve and Bob DeVries who was with his fiancé at the time Charlie. It should be noted they're now happily married. They made my visit well worth it. We had a great time together while I was there.

As for this Christmas Day, the Nets led the Celtics, 24-22 after the first quarter. After that, the Celtics took over as they had a big second quarter. They out scored the Nets, 34-18 to take a commanding 56-42 lead into the locker room at halftime. In the third quarter, the Celtics added to their lead slightly as they led, 73-58 after three quarters. In the fourth quarter, the Celtics maintained their lead and they beat the Nets, 93-76. Like the King said and I quote "this game had no continuity to it, it was horrible start to finish." I agreed with him. The Nets shot poorly all game especially at the free throw line where they missed twelve shots. If they made some of them they could have made the Celtics sweat a little.

Little did we know a few days later that we saw Avery Johnson's last game as head coach of the Nets. He was fired surprisingly on Thursday. Assistant coach P.J. Carlesimo was named interim head coach for the time being.

Wednesday after work I came home and I continued to play catch up at home. Thankfully I did. By doing so, I was able to go out the next night.

Thursday after work, I came home for a short time after I went shopping. When I got in the house, the King called me and he said his mother is in the hospital. He told me that our friend Bryan Gilligan was going to pick me up around 8:30PM or so because we were going to go out for dinner at Donovan's Pub. In the meantime, the King was with his mother at the hospital. Bryan came by the house to get me. We then went to the hospital which is nearby to pick up the King so he could join us. On the way over to Donovan's, we picked up our friend Frank Anichiarico who also joined us. We all went to have a nice dinner together. Since we didn't have any local games in the area, we arranged to get together. In turned out to be a great night out. Unfortunately for the King his mother is still sick.

Friday after work I went back to downtown Brooklyn to see the Nets host the Charlotte Bobcats at the Barclays Center. I stopped off at McDonald's for a pre game meal in the Atlantic Center Mall first. Before I left work, the King informed me that he was going to have to pass up on going away for the weekend. He said he didn't want to take a chance going away with his mother not feeling well. I thought he made the right decision. I would have liked to have had his company but the situation dictated that he was better off staying home just in case.

As for the game we saw, the Nets who were playing their first game under interim coach P.J. Carlesimo got exactly what they needed, a visit from the lowly Bobcats who were losers of 16 straight games coming in. They left making it 17 in a row as the Nets raced out to a big lead early and they never looked back as they went on to a 97-81 win making P.J. Carlesimo's debut as Net coach a successful one.

Stay tuned for the special posts I'm going to write that will recap the way I closed out 2012. Please bear with me as I try to find time to do it. Trust me it will definitely be worth the wait.

Thank you for reading and following along.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman