Bringin' the Noise

NEW JERSEY: Although the mega-losing New Jersey Nets have long been accused of impersonating a professional basketball team, it turns out basketball wasn't the only thing being faked in the Meadowlands. Nets officials admitted Friday that they had blasted recorded crowd noise through arena speakers to to pump up the volume at home games. "Some of this stuff is embarrassing," coach John Calipari told the New York Daily News. "I just shook my head. I said, "Do we need to do that?' " said Calipari, who learned of the high-decibel hoax early in the season. The interesting thing for the Nets (or the New Jersey Mavericks--New Jersey and Dallas virtually swapped rosters earlier this year) is that attendance is actually up this year, from 15,564 a game to 16,017 in the 20,000-odd seat Continental Airlines Arena. The New York Knicks, Toronto Raptors, Indiana Pacers, Orlando Magic and Philadelphia 76ers all said their clubs don't use fake crowd noise. Many teams in other sports use electronic clapping sounds to spur on fans and some even flash cartoon cheer prompts on scoreboards. But there are no attempts to simulate crowd noise. "We have rules about when and what decibel level but not the content of particular noise," NBA vice president Brian McIntyre said. "That's up to the individual teams."