Larry Bird hails NBA Global Games London visit

Indiana Pacers President Larry Bird described the NBA Global Games in London as "heaven" despite a loss for his team against the Denver Nuggets.

The NBA legend watched on from the stands at the O2 Arena as his side were beaten 140-112 by the Denver Nuggets Thursday night. Nikola Jokic set the game high with 22 points, whilst the nearest Pacer player was C.J. Miles on 20.

Bird said of his experience in London: "It's been a great time, it's a great place very impressive. We have had plenty of food as you can probably tell. But what a great experience, this is heaven to me. The architecture, all the things you read about as a kid in the history books, it's pretty amazing."

Asked whether the NBA will ever be able to have teams based in Europe, Bird said: "Our league has got a lot of talent in it but I don't know if we've got enough to have more teams but the NBA is doing well, this is a great opportunity for us to come over here and sell the brand and it's just unfortunate the Pacers didn't show up tonight. But it's great, the fans showed up, they seemed like they were into it."

Bird went on to explain why the Pacers had lost against the Nuggets: "Well we didn't play well, make any excuse you want but we didn't show up to play. Denver did a great job of back cutting, setting picks, hitting shots and I thought we did pretty good first quarter. They had a lot of three point shots and we were just down one but after that we fell apart." Endit