Game postponed over COVID concerns
NBA: ‘No plans to pause the season’
On a day when the Celtics sent four more players into health and safety protocols after Jayson Tatum tested positive twice for COVID-19, the C’s found a team in even worse shape than themselves.
Sunday’s night game against Miami was postponed when Avery Bradley, the former Celtic, reportedly tested positive earlier in the day, opening the rest of the Heat roster up to contact tracing.
The Celtics, with Tatum and Robert Williams both asymptomatic but positive, and Jaylen
Brown, Semi Ojeleye, Javonte Green, Grant Williams and Tristan Thompson all in contact tracing, would have had the league’s required minimum of eight players available.
The league released the following statement:
“The National Basketball Association game scheduled for tonight between the Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics at TD Garden has been postponed in accordance with the league’s Health and Safety Protocols. Because of ongoing contact tracing with the Heat, the team does not have the league-required eight available players to proceed with tonight’s game against the Celtics.”
NBA spokesman Mike Bass later said that the league, despite a rapid rise in cases that has heavily impacted teams in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Dallas and Washington, does not plan to delay the season.
“We anticipated that there would be game postponements this season and planned this season accordingly,” Bass told the New York Times. “There are no plans to pause the season. We will continue to be guided by our medical experts and our health and safety protocols.”
The question is whether said protocols are working.
The Celtics’ path alone appears to be a cautionary tale, beginning last Wednesday in Miami, when Bradley spent several stretches guarding Tatum.
Rob Williams tested positive the next morning and was sent into a minimum of seven days of quarantine (five days plus two days of negative tests). When it