NEW YORK, N.Y. - Everything tonight is kicked up a notch, as Emeril likes to say. The PA music is easily twice as loud. The crowd, for the first time in the tournament, is into the game right at the start. As the reporter next to me said, "everything is bigger, louder, fabulouser."

My spell checker says that "fabulouser" is not a word, but it should be.

Even Roy Hibbert looks an inch taller. He might just need a haircut though.