COVID concerns halt Celts-Heat
NBA : ‘No plans to pause the season’; Miami had fewer than eight players available
On a day when the Celtics sent four more players into health and safety protocols after Jayson Tatum tested positive twice for COVID19, 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 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 was determined that Thompson and Grant Williams sat next to Rob Williams on the bench the night before for at least 15 minutes, both players were sent into protocols for contact tracing.
Tatum returned to the floor Friday night against Washington, and later hugged his good friend Bradley Beal and spent a prolonged period chatting with the Wizards guard.
When Tatum’s first test on Saturday morning (players are tested daily) came back positive, Beal was pulled just prior to his game that day against, of all opponents, Miami.
When Tatum’s second test on Saturday night also produced a positive result, Brown, Ojeleye and Green were sent into protocols for contact tracing.
Had the Celtics played, they would have put one of the most inexperienced rosters in franchise history on the floor, including Marcus Smart, Daniel Theis and Jeff Teague; second-year players Tacko Fall, Tremont Waters and Carsen Edwards; and rookies Payton Pritchard and Aaron Nesmith.
Short of Tuesday’s game in Chicago being postponed, this is also the lineup that will take the floor against the Bulls. Thompson and Grant Williams might be eligible for that game.
Should Rob Williams produce two days of negative tests, he would be eligible for Wednesday’s game in the Garden against Orlando.
Tatum faces a later return. He must quarantine for seven days, including two straight days of negative test results, before he is allowed to return.