Basketball, game-day food and the rooms where we watch
Courtside reading for game nights
Basketball you can follow from a bar stool, game-day cooking that holds up for a crowd, beer worth the second round and the culture of watching sports together.
For fans who care about the fourth quarter and the food on the table in equal measure.
We are a small crew of writers who have cooked on pub lines, poured beer through playoff runs and charted more games than we can count. Here we write about the things that make a game night good: reading the action on a screen, wings that stay crisp, nachos that survive a long timeout, the right beer for a three-hour broadcast and the rooms where strangers end up high-fiving.
Recipes are cooked before they are written. Basketball pieces are watched, rewound and argued over. New articles land in the Playbook most weeks.
The knock came during a timeout in the second quarter. My condo was full for a second-round game, and my nephew had found a strip of hallway where he could…
11 minKeep reading
Point guard to centre, the one through the five: what each basketball position does, how to spot them on TV and why the lines keep blurring.
10 minKeep reading
How non-alcoholic beer is made, which styles taste closest to the real thing, and how to host a long game where nobody feels left out.
9 minKeep reading
The shortest three on the floor sits in a strip about three feet wide. How that geometry reshaped offences, rosters and the way defences think.
9 minKeep reading
Screen size, sound, sightlines, a drink rail and a quiet fridge. A practical plan for a home room built around watching games with friends.
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Servers, barbacks, cooks and door staff: what sports bar jobs involve, what a playoff shift feels like and how tips, training and hiring work.
9 minKeep reading
The fan's calendarTip-off in October, March brackets, June finals and the long summer of trades: a year of games worth watching together.
Where to watchSightlines, sound, seats and the small clues that tell you a room will actually put your game on the big screen.
GalleryTaps, booths, walls of screens and the basement setups that rival them, in pictures and the notes that go with them.Alpha Grillers Instant-Read Thermometer
A pocket instant-read probe that answers in a couple of seconds and comes calibrated.
SKLZ Pro Mini Hoop
The over-the-door mini hoop most people end up with: a clear backboard and a spring-action steel rim that takes a dunk.
Crock-Pot 7-Quart Slow Cooker
A big manual slow cooker with low, high and warm: the simplest way to hold chili or pulled pork through a long game.
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