Basketball 

Michael and his staff challenge the warehouse workers to a basketball game with a bet looming over both parties.

Director:

Greg Daniels

Writers:

Greg Daniels (developed for american television by), Greg Daniels

Stars:

Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Steve Carell	...	Michael Scott
Rainn Wilson	...	Dwight Schrute
John Krasinski	...	Jim Halpert
Jenna Fischer	...	Pam Beesly
B.J. Novak	...	Ryan Howard
David Denman	...	Roy Anderson
Craig Robinson	...	Darryl Philbin
Patrice O'Neal	...	Lonny
Leslie David Baker	...	Stanley Hudson
Brian Baumgartner	...	Kevin Malone
Matt DeCaro	...	Jerry
Kate Flannery	...	Meredith Palmer
Angela Kinsey	...	Angela Martin
Oscar Nuñez	...	Oscar Martinez (as Oscar Nunez)
Karly Rothenberg	...	Madge

Storyline

Michael and his staff challenge the warehouse workers to a basketball game with a bet looming over both parties.

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Plot Keywords:

reference to lord of the rings | game | basketball | team | 

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Genres:

Comedy

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Certificate:

TV-14

Did You Know?

Trivia

According to the commentary on Season 1 Episode 5, the scene in which Jim is hit in the face by Roy was an accident and real. David Denman (Roy) backed into John Krasinski (Jim), and hit him in the face, resulting in John bleeding. The cameras kept rolling and they kept the shot in the show. But, as a result of the injury, a photo shoot scheduled for the next day had to be canceled because John's lip was so swollen.

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Goofs

(at around 1 min) A microphone can be seen.

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Quotes

Jim Halpert: God, this is so sad. This is the smallest amount of power I've ever seen go to someone's head.

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Connections

Features Solitaire (1981)

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Soundtracks

Sweet Georgia Brown
Written by Ben Bernie and His Orchestra, Kenneth Casey, and Maceo Pinkard
Performed by Steve Carell

User Reviews

Let's go to the warehouse...

Remember the episode of the British version of The Office where Tim (Martin Freeman) showed people around and took them to the warehouse? That was basically a one-off incident (except for that one other time when David Brent lied about firing someone), a 2-minute laugh that didn't lead to much else. In the US version, however, the warehouse workers play a more substantial role (for one thing, Pam's fiancé is one of them), and this episode is the first good example of that.

In his eagerness to prove his staff is top notch, Michael challenges the warehouse workers in a basketball game, to be held in the warehouse. Naturally, since he doesn't want to lose, the rule-book can be subject to a few, uh, tweaks, as the boss, Dwight, Jim and the others take on Roy (Kevin Denman), Darryl Philbin (Judd Apatow collaborator Craig Robinson) and the rest of the workers.

Whereas the previous shows were all about embarrassing dialogue exchanges, Basketball manages to combine verbal and visual comedy, with terrific results: the game in itself is a major treat, as are Michael's bizarre morale-boosting remarks (which include calling Jim "gay" and dismissing Dwight as a "nerd" - not that he's wrong about the latter). Still very wrong, and very, very funny.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 April 2005 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Deedle-Dee Productions, Reveille Productions, NBC Universal Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

23 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1