Confetti falls at Oracle Arena after Game 1 of basketball’s NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers in Oakland, Calif., Thursday, June 4, 2015. AP
The Golden State Warriors’ unleashed their most lethal weapon against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Friday.
And it’s not the MVP Steph Curry, neither the sweet-shooting Klay Thompson nor defensive specialist Andre Iguodala or any of the players.
It’s the charming 10-year-old Filipino-American girl named Nayah Damasen, who sang the national anthem before tipoff.
Damasen was unfazed as she belted out her own rendition of “Star-Spangled Banner” before a sold-out crowd at Oracle Arena. That’s because it wasn’t her first time singing at center court. In fact, she started singing during Warriors’ games two years ago as an 8-year-old and every time she did, the team had since lost only once.
Call it coincidence but the singing sensation had been tagged a “lucky charm” by the Warriors, who survived LeBron James’ playoff career-high 44 points and the Cavaliers, 108-100, in overtime.
“I feel so honored and blessed to be here,” she told nbcbayarea.com. “I wouldn’t say that I’m a charm. But music can touch people’s hearts.”
Damasen drew a thunderous roar from about 20,000 or more fans inside one of the most electric buildings in the NBA after she sang.
But her biggest fan will always be her mother, Mardi Damasen, who also spoke with nbcbayarea.com.
Mardi said in the interview that she started to recognize her daughter’s talent in singing when she was a toddler.
“I was like, ‘Whoa, she’s good.’”
Of her siblings, 13-year-old brother Noah and 8-year-old Nikaela, Nayah is the one with a voice like her grandmother, who was asked in the 1940s to sing for community events growing up in the Philippines, her mother said, the article wrote.
She is good and as it turns out—a lucky charm too. RC