"Cough, cough, cough. I really don't like Utah's thin air."
"Give it a rest, Shaq. You just don't like stuffing that massive body of yours onto a plane."
O'Neal and Campbell, the team's two jokesters, were fooling around again as the group traveled from sunny California to Salt Lake City, high on the Utah plateau.
Salt Lake City was an important mountain city in the western United States and the capital of Utah. With its beautiful environment, good public safety, and advanced medical standards, it was one of the most livable cities in the country. Its residents were mainly descendants of Mormon Church members—the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—and Nordic immigrants.
The Jazz were founded in 1974 in New Orleans. Since New Orleans was the birthplace of jazz music, the team was named the New Orleans Jazz.
Jazz home fans were incredibly fanatical. Visiting teams playing here were always bombarded with profanity and deafening boos, making the atmosphere a major test for road teams. Salt Lake City's altitude of around 1,300 meters was another reason the Utah Jazz had such a hellish home court. The low atmospheric pressure and oxygen-deprived environment of the Salt Lake City plateau had an obvious effect on athletes as well.
Kobe didn't care about any of that. He often used an oxygen-restriction mask in training to simulate hypoxic conditions, and he had already played many playoff series in this arena. Kobe wasn't even afraid of the boos at Staples. Why would he be afraid of this?
"Kobe, Kobe. I heard Sprewell's MRI came back negative. He said he'd definitely make you pay next time."
"Who cares?" Kobe shrugged. There were people like that everywhere in life—disgusting people. Right or wrong, they would bare their fangs and claws at you like cockroaches. The best