When I saw “Birdman,” I fell in love with the film’s score. As a lifelong drummer, my ear locked in on the jazz rhythms that accompanied actor Michael Keaton as he walked through the dingy theater hallway in the movie.

Jazz is the holy grail for every drummer and, admittedly, a genre too intimidating for me to tackle.

“Birdman” was scored by renowned jazz drummer Antonio Sanchez. Sanchez hails from Mexico City, same for the film’s Oscar-winning director, Alejandro González Iñárritu. “Birdman” was nominated for a Golden Globe for best score and missed out on an Oscar nomination only because of a controversial technicality that disqualified Sanchez from contention.

A year after the movie debuted, ESPN colleague and producer Paolo Grassini attended a special live screening of the film. Sanchez played alongside the movie on his drum set from beginning to end, literally without missing a beat.

I never knew one man, let alone a drummer from Mexico, was responsible for creating such a memorable soundtrack.

So we had an idea: In preparation for the start of the NBA season, we asked Antonio Sanchez to live-score a Warriors game as well as improvise superhero theme music for LeBron James and Karl-Anthony Towns.