For many Irish sports fans, one of the highlights of every Olympic Games is hearing Timmy McCarthy's inimitable commentary on RTÉ's basketball coverage.
Paris 2024 was no different. But aside from the traditional five-a-side format of the game, the Corkman also lent his voice to the less well-known 3x3 basketball finals where instead of three-pointers, it's two from "downtown" and one inside the arc.
The three-a-side version of basketball is a game gaining in prominence and has been part of the last two Olympics, starting with Tokyo 2020.
And it's a format that Basketball Ireland is keen to focus on going into the future.
Earlier this week, the governing body received €200,000 through Sport Ireland's Performance Development Programme Funding, which is earmarked for 3x3.
It follows the Ireland men's senior team making their landmark debut in the FIBA Europe Cup last September in Copenhagen, while the women's side will be playing in the FIBA 3x3 World Series for a third year on the trot.
The women's team are ranked 39th in the world and 21st in Europe in the FIBA 3x3 Federation rankings, while the men's team are 55th globally in their own category.
Basketball Ireland are keen to build on that recent progress with the hopes of getting into Olympic qualification tournaments in the future, as Basketball Ireland senior technical officer Matthew Hall has said: "3x3 as a format is a realistic route for Irish basketball to compete at the Olympic Games and this funding will help us to try and achieve that goal."
All of that is music to the ears of Adam Mullally, who has thrown himself into the 3x3 world with gusto in the last couple of years.
The Dubliner, who hails from Rolestown near Swords, will jet off to Spain soon where he will link back up with Valencian team Loriguilla to play in a Mediterranean 3x3 League tournament on 9 May.
The 24-year-old was first introduced to 3x3 while playing five-a-side for CB Conejero in Lanzarote during the 2022-23 season.
"Just before I was about to come back to Ireland, there was a big 3x3 tournament with some of the best teams in Spain and with teams from France and stuff like that," Mullally tells RTÉ Sport.
"I just got asked to stay back and (was asked) would we enter a team into it and that was my first time ever playing a proper high level of 3x3.
"The summer after that, I actually played with the Irish 3x3 Under-23 team. The whole summer we had tournaments in Lithuania, Romania and we went to Scotland as well."
His high-scoring performances in tournaments for Loriguilla also saw Mullally picked up by La Celeste, a team from the Liga FEB 3x3, the Spanish Federation's highest league in the men's category.
La Celeste's other three players were all Uruguayan and the former Drogheda Wolves man's debut last month with the Valencia-based outfit in the Liga FEB's winter tournament, made him the first Irish player to play in that top tier competition.
It's a real test of his mettle because 3x3 is the type of format where there's "nowhere to hide".
The ten-minute length of games and the 12-second shot clock leave little chance to catch a breathe, while the half-court set-up and quick transitions from defence to attack and back again in short order means players get plenty of touches on the ball as they try to engineer one-point or two-point opportunities.
"In 5v5, you have a lot more time to think, whereas 3x3 if you make a mistake you can't think about it for longer than 0.5 seconds because it's already coming back at you. It's offence, defence, offence, defence on rotation so you don't have time to think," Mullally says.
"It's also a lot more physical as well. The fitness you need for that is a lot more than 5v5 because the (officials) let a lot more calls go. In 5v5 they call way more fouls whereas 3x3 is a lot more physical, so you're taking a lot more hits and at the same time you have to be running and playing defence.
"When I'm training for it, it'll be more short sprints instead of 5v5 where you need more of endurance because it's 40 minutes."
Mullally also feels it lends itself to players who are all-rounders in terms of skill-set variety which may benefit the development of fundamentals, particularly if it can be promoted within Irish schools.
And while it remains nascent within Ireland, he is seeing signs of growth.
"Now it's getting a lot bigger. Over the past two years, there's a lot more 3x3 being played and people are trying to set up 3x3 tournaments," he says.
"I'm seeing county councils are now putting in 3x3 basketball courts. I saw one in Ashbourne, two more up in Laytown and I'd be going up there to shoot sometimes and you'd see kids actually playing 3x3 instead of 5v5.
"It's good to see that kids know what 3x3 is and they're actually playing proper rules of 3x3. It shows the sport is growing."
And most importantly, Mullally believes the exploits of the men's senior team in qualifying for last year's Europe Cup has been the biggest boost to the profile of 3x3 here.
"It's huge for 3x3. It shows people Ireland can actually compete on an international level," he says.
"I think there's more of a push now (from Basketball Ireland) since they got into the Euro Cup because 3x3 is based on ranking points.
"So the more 3x3 a certain country plays, the more ranking points they get and that can qualify you for the Olympics. So now I think there's a big push in playing more 3x3 which is a good thing."
