Time off no vacation
SAN ANTONIO — Washington Wizards coach Scott Brooks awoke the morning of Jan. 13 keenly aware his season had taken a strange turn.
“I had to make myself breakfast for the first time all year,” Brooks said.
Normally on game days, breakfast for players and staff would be on hand at the team’s practice facility or hotel.
With that night’s game against Utah postponed and the Wizards in line to face what would become a 13-day layoff because of COVID-19 health and safety protocols, Brooks was on his own.
By the end of Washington’s six-game hiatus, Brooks had become a master omelet chef. Breakfast, however, was the least of his worries.
“It’s as mentally challenging as anything I’ve ever had to deal with,” Brooks said of guiding the Wizards through their unscheduled time off.
As Gregg Popovich prepares to steer the San Antonio Spurs through a COVID-19 interruption of their own this week, Brooks knows more than most what he is in for.
The Spurs last played Feb. 14, ringing up a 122-110 victory in Charlotte to improve to 2-0 on their nowabandoned rodeo trip.
After that outing, four unidentified players tested positive for coronavirus, leading the NBA to postpone the Spurs’ next four games.
The team still is scheduled to visit Oklahoma City on Wednesday in what was supposed to be the capper to a seven-game trip.
The path between now and then will be a mental and physical grind for which there is no guidebook, Brooks said.
“There’s nothing I can take from a past experience or even another coach’s past experience to be able to navigate through it,” Brooks said. “It’s something nobody has had to do.”
With the latest spate of postponements, the Spurs became the fifth team this season to have at least three consecutive games called off.
The Wizards hold the ignominious record of six in a row scuttled. Memphis had five straight games postponed in late January.
The Grizzlies returned with a vengeance Jan. 30, winning the first of two games over the Spurs at the AT&T Center by a combined 48 points.
“We talked about it before the season, that this could happen and how we’re going to face it,” Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins said. “You never know when that moment strikes. Luckily, our togetherness never wavered.”
The next challenge facing Popovich and the Spurs, say those who have charted these waters this season, will be to squeeze in a practice.
The Spurs returned to San Antonio on Friday from Charlotte, where players and staff had been quarantined since Sunday night. The team is expected to hold some semblance of practice before taking the court in Oklahoma City.
The Wizards’ season was put on hold after six players tested positive for COVID-19. Three others were placed in protocols because of contact tracing.
It took Washington eight days to clear enough players to practice, and even then Brooks initially didn’t have enough bodies for 5on-5 workouts.
“Some guys on our team had basically three weeks between games,” Brooks said. “That’s almost unheard of.”
After having their Jan. 20 game at Portland postponed, the Grizzlies couldn’t get on the practice floor until Jan. 27.
During the week off, Jenkins kept his team together via Zoom meetings.
The prospect of maintaining conditioning and sharpness for a team that went on hiatus amid a fivegame winning streak proved daunting.
“The biggest challenge is being able to physically stay ready and knowing whenever that date comes that you’re able to play NBA games again, are you doing everything possible to make sure guys are healthy and prepared?” Jenkins said. “The last thing you want to risk is future injuries.”
If the Spurs indeed resume their season Wednesday in OKC, other trials await.
For starters, they likely will be short-handed if the four players who tested positive remain unavailable. Once those players can return, there is no guarantee they will be at full strength in the near future.
Several players who have overcome COVID-19 this season, including Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns, report feeling fatigued long after the virus left their system.
If there is one warning Brooks could offer Popovich, it is to be prepared to deal with the after-effects of COVID-19 long after the outbreak has subsided.
Brooks acknowledged that the six Wizards players who tested positive in January — ex-Spur Davis Bertans, Rui Hachimura, Deni Avdija, Ish Smith, Troy Brown Jr. and Moritz Wagner — are all at different stages of recovery, even as the games go on.
“I think all of them are still working through it,” Brooks said. “You can see it. Some guys still get winded quick.”
The uncertainty surrounding the virus and its lingering symptoms takes a mental toll, Brooks said.
“It’s not like you get a Charley horse, and everybody has seen it before and can say, ‘Hey this is going to be five to seven days,’ ” Brooks said. “This is nothing like anybody has ever dealt with.”
When the Wizards at last returned to the court Jan. 24 after a nearly two-week layoff, their opponent — coincidentally enough — was the Spurs.
Before what became a 121101 win over Washington, Popovich marveled at what the Wizards had to go through simply to arrive at the AT&T Center.
“There’s no playbook for that, right?” Popovich said at the time. “That’s just an awful situation.”
The Spurs are about to find out firsthand. Brooks, for one, is rooting for them.
“Pop will be able to handle it,” Brooks said. “He’s as smart as anybody in any sport.
“It’s definitely a challenge, though. You don’t want anybody to go through it.”
Coaches who’ve endured COVID delays say Popovich in for a challenge