Noise, schmoise.
Load the cannon, crank the speakers, cut loose and bust some eardrums.Then pay a $10,000 fine to the NBA, maybe, because there's a fine line between what's acceptable to the home-team crowd and what's OK with the all-powerful league that sanctions professional basketball in Salt Lake City.
This much is loud and clear:
The Delta Center is the noisiest arena in the National Basketball Association.
"It is the loudest, bar none," said Greg Boeck, USA Today's NBA beat writer and a connoisseur of such things because, well, that's his job.
"I asked (Chicago Bulls coach) Phil Jackson before he came here whether he thought this would be noisy," Boeck said, and the ill-prepared Jackson replied that nothing could be rowdier than Key Arena in Seattle, where the Bulls won their fourth championship last year.
Guess again, Phil.
"It ranks up where old Chicago Stadium used to be, and that was louder than anyplace else," said Sam Smith, the Chicago Tribune's NBA columnist.
Chicago Stadium, Smith noted, was razed and replaced almost four years ago by the more urbane, civilized and white-collar United Center, which is where the Bulls play now. That left the Delta Center its title of heavyweight racket king and perhaps even the loudest play in all of sports.
Smith said a "collegiate atmosphere" among Utah Jazz boosters is what drives the local crowd into a frenzy, raising a human din during the team's current Finals series with Chicago, that, according to NBA noise meters, tops out somewhere between 110 and 114 decibels. A loud office registers about 60 on the decibel scale; a jet engine around 100.
The fan noise has incited Jazz vice president of promotions and game operations Grant Harrison and his staff to adjust music and public game address accordingly, and there's the rub with the NBA. The league has a rule that during nationally broadcast games "manufactured noise" cannot exceed 95 decibels.
The NBA's playoff-game director, who can be found sitting at the scorer's table during this series, warned the Jazz four times during Sunday's win over Chicago to turn the volume down. He cautioned the team eight times during Friday's defeat of the Bulls.
Eventually, said Harrison, there comes a point where the complaint is formalized and "we get a nice letter from them advising us of a $10,000 fine."
No such missive has been received yet, Harrison said, conceding that it would be news if it came because of its precedent-setting nature. He said the NBA has never levied a fine for excessive manufactured noise, though it has been known to impose sanctions for other promotions-related transgressions.
Last year, the Phoenix Suns were assessed a $10,000 penalty for repeatedly showing a questionable call on their Jumbotron. Home teams are supposed to display such replays only once. And this season the Jazz were nailed for violating the fine print on the NBA's national-broadcast restrictions, which prohibit local advertising from appearing on such telecasts.
Harrison said the Jazz in an "innocent mistake" forgot to take down some in-house billboards at the Delta Center before a nationwide airing. The NBA fined the team $10,000, though a plea bargain reduced the penalty to $5,000.
Where the league cannot impose too many restrictions, Harrison noted, is on constitutional freedoms, which include free speech.
Thus, crowd noise is unregulated and you can scream all you want - as long as it's in good taste.
"Just so there's no misunderstanding, we have never entertained any inkling of thought to try to tone down the fan noise here," said Chris Brienza, a league spokesman.
The NBA, after all, doesn't want to spark a riot.
This is not to say that the league deserves a freedom-of-expression award.
At Sunday's game, the three-man referee squad of Dick Bavetta, Ed T. Rush and Joe Forte tossed a number of Bulls bad-boy Dennis Rodman effigies from the game, calling security to take the offensive items away from the Jazz fans who were waving them around.
At least one was removed at the request of Rodman himself, who apparently was not comfortable seeing his likeness decked out in a dress, although he has been known to willfully and publicly cross the cross-dressing line.
Jackson also took umbrage at a motorcycle appearance by Bear, the Jazz mascot, who rode into the arena during a timeout on one of Karl Malone's Harley-Davidsons. The ever-mischievous Bear stopped the bike near the Bull's huddle, only to fire it up a few minutes later a few feet from the Chicago team, allegedly discharging noxious fumes in the delicate direction of Michael Jordan and company.
Jackson complained to the referees, one of whom "got on the headset (that Jazz promotions people communicate over during the game) and told me not to bring it in anymore," said an unsympathetic Harrison, who dismissed such griping as sophomoric and unworthy of winning ballclubs.
"They're reaching for excuses," he said. "It doesn't sound like a championship team to me. They ought to play the game and forget the sideshows."
In any case, taste is in the eye of the beholder, and a separate officiating crew assigned to Wednesday's fifth game with Chicago will possibly take a less-restrictive view of local fan behavior. Rodman trashing might be allowed, as might mascots on big motorcycles.
Then again, the crackdown might continue.
Harrison said the Jazz have already agreed to tone down the volume of the $4,500 fireworks display that has been a playoff staple at the Delta Center.
Brienza, for the record, said the NBA considers the Delta Center noise a mostly "nonissue" blown out of proportion.
"Considering the ending (to Sunday's nail-biter in which the Jazz evened the series), it's amazing the rest of this gets any attention at all," he said.
David Moore, the NBA writer for the Dallas Morning News, agreed that any controversy over noise - especially the manufactured kind - has little to do with what's at stake.
"I find it hard to believe it would affect the outcome of the game," he said. "If the Bulls don't win a game here, I don't think it has anything to do with a bear riding around on a motorcycle."