Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Pandemic throws another ‘curveball’
Monday game vs. Pistons delayed five hours
The rules have changed for the NBA amid the coronavirus pandemic, and so did the timetable Monday for the Miami Heat.
With the league ramping up its testing volume, the game between the Heat and Detroit Pistons originally scheduled for a 3 p.m. start Monday at AmericanAirlines
Arena instead was shifted to an 8 p.m. opening tip.
“We had the saying, ‘Expect the unexpected,’ ” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said about 90 minutes before tipoff. “It’s turned into, ‘Expect the expected’ because basically this is our world right now.
“There are unpredictable things that are happening virtually daily, and the teams and players and staff
that can adapt the best to these conditions have the best chance of being stable and having success.”
With the NBA adding an additional round of COVID-19 testing, the time squeeze for the late-afternoon game proved too tight.
“I think the 3 o’clock game was a curveball,” Spoelstra said. “And, look, everybody, the NBA, there’s nobody to fault on this. Everybody is dealing with so much and nobody was prepared to handle this additional workload.
“It never would have been an issue with an 8 o’clock game or 7 o’clock game, even. It was the 3 o’clock turnaround that had to be adjusted to.”
While neither team was in danger of falling below the NBA minimum requirement of eight players in uniform, Spoelstra said there was an air of uncertainty of the game being played.
“The thought always now comes across your mind,” Spoelstra said. “We’ve been through it already for a different reason. And then you see other games that are being postponed. So you just never know until you get the word. And, thankfully, it was just a delay.”
Spoelstra said players had already left the arena after morning testing and were notified well before they otherwise would have returned for the 3 p.m. tip.
“So it wasn’t as if they were showing up in the afternoon before the game and we sent them back,” he said.
Both the Heat and Pistons previously have been affected by pandemic protocols.
The Heat’s Jan. 10 game against the Boston Celtics at TD Garden was postponed amid questions about the amount of available Heat players. Eight Heat players returned to South Florida the day after that scheduled game, due to the NBA’s health and safety protocols.
The Heat then played their next two games, a pair of losses against the Philadelphia 76ers at Wells Fargo Center, with the minimum of eight players available.
The Pistons’ home game this past Friday against
the visiting Washington Wizards was postponed because the Wizards lacked enough players, due to protocols. That game was scheduled to be a back-toback set that concluded with Saturday’s game against the Heat at AmericanAirlines Arena. Instead, the Pistons avoided the latenight flight and quick turnaround and defeated the Heat, 120-100.
The NBA has only released the first half of the 2020-21 regular-season schedule, in order to accommodate postponed games over the second half of the season.
The regular season is scheduled to be completed on May 16. The league has scheduled an All-Star break
from March 5-10, but has left open the possibility of utilizing that period for games postponed during the first half of the season. There are no current plans for a 2021 NBA All-Star Game.
Eight Heat players have missed time this season due to COVID-19 protocols. Bam Adebayo, Goran Dragic, Moe Harkless, Udonis Haslem, Kendrick Nunn and KZ Okpala all returned Saturday, from apparent contact-tracing absences.
The two others impacted by the protocols, Jimmy Butler and Avery Bradley, remain away from the team.
The Heat have played without fans at AmericanAirlines Arena this season,
with only friends and families of those affiliated with the team in the stands.
The Heat plan to allow initial attendance of a limited number of season-tickets holders, fewer than 2,000, into games beginning Jan. 28, although those plans remain fluid. AmericanAirlines Arena seats 19,600.
The Heat are next scheduled to play Wednesday against the Toronto Raptors in Tampa, where their home games have been relocated this season due to Canadian pandemic border restrictions.
The Heat on Monday also remained without guard Tyler Herro (neck) and center Meyers Leonard (shoulder).