WHOLE NEW BALLGAME
But Clippers coach Rivers says best team is still going to win
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Normally, Lou Williams’ ears hurt after a game because of all the fan noise. This time, Williams’ vocal cords felt some pain because fans were no longer present.
“My voice is a little raspy because we’re all we got,” Williams said after the Clippers’ 99-90 victory against the Magic in a scrimmage Wednesday at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex. “This is the most vocal I’ve been forced to be during a game.”
As Williams said those words, Clippers coach Doc Rivers stood to the side so he could obey social-distancing rules. But Rivers could still hear. So he interjected, “Now you know why I talk like this!”
It seemed impossible to draw significant conclusions from the first night of NBA scrimmages as part of its ramp-up for the season, which resumes Thursday. The Pelicans (Zion Williamson) and Clippers (Patrick Beverley, Montrezl Harrell) missed key players because they left the NBA campus recently to tend to family medical emergencies. Teams also looked sloppy and rusty after not playing in an NBA game since March 11, when the league halted play because of the coronavirus. It seemed easy, however, to notice how the game looked different.
The most obvious? Teams competed without any fans in the stands as part of the NBA’s 113-page health and safety protocols. That prompted teams to make more in-game adjustments than just substitutions and play calls. Without any fans to cheer, players felt prompted to become loud cheerleaders on the bench and vocal leaders on the court.
“It forces you as a team to be involved through and through, from the coaching staff to the guys on the floor and to the players on the bench,” Williams said. “It will force everybody to create energy for themselves to be all on the same page and just create some momentum for yourselves.” Nonetheless, the NBA still wants to ensure the burden does not fall on the teams to change their behavior to account for missing fans. They have a game to play. With all the seats placed six feet apart, they had social-distancing rules to follow. So the NBA tweaked its game operations to camouflage that reality. To shield the cameras from empty stands, the league constructed large TV screens that display team logos, the game scoreboard and in-game statistics. To make up for any lost home-court advantage, the league rewarded the designated home team with player profiles after a made basket and “DEFENSE” chants when they did not have the ball. To make up for the lost noise without fans, the game operations still featured an in-game announcer and music.
Before the Nets’ scrimmage against the Pelicans, game operations played a handful of Jay-Z songs. It became the blueprint for how to handle game ops. The Nets’ game featured hip-hop from Brooklyn, including countless Jay-Z and Notorious B.I.G. songs. The Clippers also thought local by playing a handful of Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg songs.
The music didn’t fill all the silence, though. That is impossible when most NBA venues hold up to 19,000 fans. The arena here holds up to 10,000.
So you could hear Clippers star Kawhi Leonard surprisingly argue with a call. You could hear Rivers bark out plays from the sideline. You could hear Pelicans guard J.J. Redick grunt after a defensive play.
“It’s different, but it gives you a little bit of an AAU feel,” Pelicans forward Brandon Ingram said after the team’s 9968 win over the Nets.
“For anybody that just likes basketball, you want to go out there and play. That’s what we like doing.”
Not that they have any choice. This is what the setup will be through the resumed opener, the beginning of the playoffs (Aug. 17) and the end of the NBA Finals (Oct. 13). The league will have a cameraman at center court and robotic cameras around. There will be a plexiglass at the scorer’s table and announcer’s table to enhance social-distancing. More expected changes await on opening night, including the likelihood that there will be virtual fans to replace the non-existent ones.
“The NBA did an unbelievable job of having it set up the way they have,” Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry said. “The other thing that’s amazing is you can see where technology has gone. From the standpoint of, it’s not that we’re just going to be in an empty arena listening to the balls bounce, but there’s going to be a lot of interaction actually with fans.”
It did not appear to hurt the actual oncourt product. Players appeared sloppy and winded only because they had not played competitive basketball for four months and had limited training options during quarantine. No one blamed any missed shots on the changed dimensions or any miscues on the different on-court setup.
The only slight challenge involved how to handle the varying team benches. The NBA had all of its chairs spaced out six feet because of social-distancing concerns. While players and coaches are not required to wear masks on the first row of the bench, the inactive players and the coaches on the second row are. Rivers and Gentry might change the seating arrangement so it becomes easier to communicate with coaches and players. Still, these factors likely won’t determine who will hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
“I don’t think anyone is going to be better because we are playing in this environment,” Rivers said. “The great players are going to still be the great players. The role players are going to be the role players. And the best team is going to win.”