Disney bubble holding
Heat, league register a second straight clean COVID-19 report
It hardly has been a perfect season for the NBA.
But after nearly a month of coronavirus testing at its Disney World quarantine bubble, the league issued a second consecutive report without blemish.
“Of the 344 players tested for COVID-19 on the NBA campus since test results were last announced on July 20,” the NBA announced Wednesday, “zero have returned confirmed positive tests.”
The latest batch of results included those for the Heat’s Bam Adebayo and Kendrick Nunn, who both were late arrivals to Disney after previously testing positive for COVID-19 in South Florida.
On July 20, the NBA reported, “Of the 346 players tested for COVID-19 on the NBA campus since test results were last announced on July 13, zero have returned confirmed positive tests.”
In the league’s first testing report issued from Disney, the NBA on July 13 said two tests came back positive, with both players involved still in isolation at the time. The league’s entrance into the bubble type of setting came July 7.
The NBA’s policy remains “in the event that a player on the NBA campus returns a confirmed positive test in the future, he will be isolated until he is cleared for leaving isolation under the rules established by the NBA and the Players Association.”
Several players have been returned to isolation in their rooms either for leaving the campus and then returning or, in one instance, for unknowingly walking beyond the bubble boundary.
The NBA will remain sequestered until a champion is crowned, a schedule running as late as Oct. 13 for a potential Game 7 of the NBA Finals.
The Heat resume their regular season Saturday, with the first of eight “seeding” games in advance of the playoffs, a 1 p.m. matchup with the Denver Nuggets at the Wide World of Sports complex.
That game, like all others at Disney, will be played in the absence of fans.
Adebayo is coming off his Disney debut: 25 minutes, 27 seconds of action in Wednesday’s exhibition scrimmage finale, a 128-110 loss to the Denver Nuggets.
Of the unique setting that includes the color scheme and sound effects of the “home” team, Adebayo said, “It’s not dead silent. At least, you have music.”
Of the void of fans, he said, “You don’t really realize it once you get out there.”
Adebayo, who missed the Heat’s first two scrimmages, said he is ready for the resumption.
“There aren’t really any adjustments,” he said. “We just got to bring our own energy.”
The Heat took Wednesday off, with practices scheduled for Thursday and Friday, workouts coming while the rest of the league reopens the season.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said the testing is a daily reminder of the sobering reality of the times, but there also is an evolving normalcy, with the Heat on the NBA’s campus since July 8.
“There is something you do have to at least manage emotionally and mentally,” he said. “But in many other ways it has been easier just to focus on your team. Even for the guys, life is simple here. We have a schedule that’s given to us. [There’s] not even a lot of decisions on when to practice, when to eat.
“The meal room is open at specific times, three times a day. You can order food from six different restaurants if you choose to. The schedule fills up pretty quickly from everything that we’re required to do, and I think the guys have found a unique level of focus where there’s a lot less distractions and frequent opportunities just to focus on your team and continuity and getting better.”
But Spoelstra also said there also has to be more than just the hotel room and the court.
“Every day I tell the guys to book some golf, go for a walk, go play golf, soccer,” he said. “Some of the guys just roll their eyes; they would prefer just to be in their rooms just playing video games. And a lot of guys have taken me up on that and played golf. I think it’s really good vitamin D to get out there.”