Schedule continues to take a toll on Flyers
Ivan Provorov has remarkable vision. Skating powerfully with his head up, the Flyers’ defenseman frequently puts the puck in a teammate’s wheelhouse with a minimum of mistakes.
What Provorov saw Sunday in a 3-1 loss to the Washington Capitals at Wells Fargo Center was the same slipups the Flyers have made in a skid where they’ve lost three of their last four games.
Getting booed on the way to the locker room by fans who haven’t been allowed through the doors for a year should give the boys something to think about on their day off Monday.
“I think we had some opportunities,” said Provorov, who played a game-high 22 minutes. “It’s just a matter of making the smart read at the blue line. Sometimes you have to dump it in. But when we had space we didn’t make the plays that we needed to make. It just came down to that.”
Just like that, the Flyers
(12-6-3, 27 points) tumbled to fifth in the East behind the Capitals (15-6-4-32) and the Pittsburgh Penguins (29 points), who prevailed Sunday.
Despite their early energy with fans in the building, the Flyers lost momentum in the second period and the game changed. Their tired play Saturday in Pittsburgh almost pre-ordained the way they played Sunday.
Yet Flyers coach Alain Vigneault insisted his team was ready to play, and applauded goalie Carter Hart
(24 saves) for giving the team a chance to win after Joel Farabee gave them the lead with the only goal of the first period.
“We came out with good energy, making a lot of the right plays,” Vigneault said. “We knew they were going
to have a push in the second period. And in the third period, they got their third one there. I think there should have been a call in there on Zdeno Chara for high-sticking to Joel’s head but the referee let it go, and then we missed an assignment. But the guys competed.”
Travis Konecny missed on a 3-on-1 in the last six minutes of the second period, and the Flyers hit a post on that rush. Hit a wall, too.
Two minutes later, Alex Ovechkin flicked a pass from T.J. Oshie into the net to knot the game at 1. It was just the eighth goal of the season but the 714th of Ovechkin’s illustrious career. And it was too deadly accurate for Hart.
That was with 4:49 left. Hart was beaten on a similar play, Dmitry Orlov sliding the puck underneath him on a crossice feed from John Carlson with just 15.8 seconds left, the Flyers making a mistake on a faceoff.
With 15:45 remaining, the Capitals scored their third straight goal, Nick Jensen finding the net for the first time since 2018.
“I think we gave up the first goal where the puck should have went deep,” Provorov said. “We lost it at their blue line and then they went down and scored. The second goal there was a questionable icing that in my opinion should have been waved off. Then the faceoff, we got confused and they scored. In the third period we weren’t clicking and weren’t making the right plays and right passes and ended up losing the puck too much.”
Provorov bristled when it was suggested the Flyers had just completed a sequence of six games in nine days, the last two back-to-back.
“I’m pretty sure all the teams are on the same schedule,” Provorov said. “So, that can’t be an excuse.”
The Flyers better get used to the busy schedule. After a Tuesday game here against Buffalo, they play the Caps twice at Wells Fargo Center.
• • •
NOTES » Farabee’s goal was his team-leading 11th for the Flyers. All of his goals are at even strength. … The Flyers are 4-5 since the coronavirus outbreak at Washington. … The Flyers had won four straight games versus the Caps . ... Nate Prosser was returned to the Taxi Squad and the club recalled forward Connor Bunnaman from the Taxi Squad.
Philadelphia 76ers teammates Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons were ruled out of Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game after being flagged by coronavirus contact tracing, prompting some players to question again why the exhibition was being played during a pandemic.
The 76ers and the NBA learned of the situation with Embiid and Simmons — which stemmed from getting haircuts — on Saturday night and made the decision Sunday morning that neither could play about nine hours before the scheduled tipoff.
The game in Atlanta is going forward as scheduled.
“It’s just an unfortunate time in the world where our health and safety should be at the front of the helm,” AllStar Paul George of the Los Angeles Clippers said Sunday from Atlanta. “I personally didn’t agree with the game but, you know, it is what it is.”
A person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press that Embiid and Simmons have both tested negative for COVID-19, and that their barber has tested positive for it. Both players saw the barber a day or two before flying to Atlanta, according to the person who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity Sunday because those details were not released publicly.
“It’s kind of messed up,” Washington All-Star Bradley Beal said. “It’s unfortunate.”
Embiid would have been a starter for Team Durant, which will be coached by Philadelphia’s Doc Rivers. Simmons would have been a reserve for Team LeBron. New Orleans’ Zion Williamson will start in Embiid’s place, the NBA said, and both teams will have 11 players on the active rosters instead of the usual 12.
Embiid and Simmons are in Atlanta, though it was not immediately clear if they would have to remain there and quarantine or if they could leave and resume their All-Star break elsewhere.
“I would say it’s not looking great,” Rivers said Sunday morning, when asked about the situation before the final determination on the status of Embiid and Simmons was made.
It’s not a great look in any respect.
A number of players — All-Star captain LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers among them — openly wondered in recent weeks why the game was being played. And Sunday’s news provided a reminder of why those concerns seemed valid.
“Obviously, I love our league and I love playing the game of basketball at the highest level and doing what I love to do,” James said. “But I just think, under the circumstances and what we’re going through still with the pandemic and everything with the season,
I just thought we could have looked at it a little bit differently . ... And I hate the fact that Joel and Ben will not be able to play today.”
The league and the National Basketball Players Association went ahead with plans for the game for multiple reasons, including because it will pay tribute to historically Black institutions and generate at least $3 million for scholarship funds that aid Black students.
“Throughout this pandemic, we’ve sought to find the right balance between the health and safety of our players, the community that’s involved in producing NBA basketball, and of course our fans, along with the economic interests as well of our community,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Saturday in his annual All-Star address. “Add into that social justice issues . ... Again, we feel we’ve struck the appropriate balance here, looking out for the interests of everyone
involved.”
The collective bargaining agreement between the league and its players also stipulates that the game be played, and Silver has said multiple times in recent weeks that millions of fans around the globe want to see the game happen.
“I don’t want to say we didn’t have a choice, but it’s in our CBA and our CBA says there has to be an All-Star Game every year,” Beal said. “There’s a lot of language in there that can kind of get ugly if we didn’t necessarily come down and go through with the All-Star Game. There’s still guys reserved about it, I’m sure. I’m still reserved about it.”
There have been NBA 31 games this season postponed because at least one team would not have
enough players eligible to play due to virus-related reasons, including positive tests and contact tracing situations.
In past cases where contact tracing has detected an issue that was eventually confirmed as a positive case, players have typically had to sit for a week. That means Embiid and Simmons potentially could miss at least two games; Philadelphia, which has the best record in the Eastern Conference, opens its second-half schedule with games at Chicago on Thursday and at Washington on Friday.
No other All-Stars or members of the 76ers’ coaching staff in Atlanta were affected, because they “were not exposed to the individual in Philadelphia,” the NBA said.