On Monday, around 4:30 p.m., local time, Rudy Gobert left the 21c Museum Hotel in the western end of Oklahoma City and boarded a bus to make the seven-block trip to the Chesapeake Energy Arena.
Nine and a half months ago, Gobert left the same hotel and stepped into a car to be taken about 20 blocks to the University of Oklahoma Medical Center to be tested for COVID-19. It seemed absurd Gobert might actually have coronavirus, but after returning negative tests for streptococcus and the flu, he received a tampon in his nose. Less than 24 hours later – just 10 minutes before the Oklahoma City Thunder and Utah Jazz were dropped on March 11 – it yielded positive results for the virus, launching a series of events that changed the NBA forever … and the world of sports as a whole.
On Monday, Gobert took a long walk down the hall to the locker room he had never seen in March, the one in which his colleagues spent hours with strangers and fears surrounding them as they sat in a circle with surgical gloves. blue and masks, waiting for the arrival of health officials to test them.
“I walked into my office and remembered how I spent some time there,” jazz coach Quin Snyder said Monday, smiling. “I won’t call it PTSD, because it’s not that extreme, but there are definitely memories.”
Monday’s game was a complete moment for Gobert and Jazz, with the inevitable flood of memories, although they did not want to turn it into a focus of the night. They didn’t spend much time talking about it, Snyder said, but small things, like being in the same hotel or seeing the locker room or walking on a fanless field, served as a reminder.
“It simply came to our notice then [hotel] room, believe it or not, “said Donovan Mitchell.” Which is ironic. “
The Jazz won 110-109, with Mitchell hitting a bank runner with seven seconds left to provide the final margin. Thunder had a chance to take the lead on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s dazzling drive up the left, but the opportunity fizzled away as his shot went just over the bar after 11 minutes. Gilgeous-Alexander’s attempt was short, Gobert recovered and the buzzer rang with the ball in his hands.
“It’s just basketball. I just focused on trying to get the victory,” Gobert said. “Chosen [big] everything was going back to the same hotel, all the memories. It was a little weird. “
Gobert’s life changed in March when he gave positive results a few days after he touched reporters on a table in front of him, shedding light on the new protocols implemented by the league to separate players and the media to protect against the spread. virus. He became the zero NBA patient, carelessly setting an example. He accepted responsibility and apologized, then spent two weeks battling the virus and treating severe symptoms, which included months without being able to taste or smell.
“Rudy has been denigrated and, in retrospect, we have a better understanding of the virus,” Snyder said. “I think Rudy fully acknowledges that some mistakes have been made, and those mistakes have been made again and again by different people, all of them.
“At that time, it was such a significant thing; and in Rudy’s case, he had a chance to prosecute him. We always challenge ourselves when we have adversity, to make you better, and I think Rudy came out of that in a place where there is growth. Not just Rudy, but for all of us. “
A lot has changed since March – people, places, things.
“It’s the same year. It’s still the same year of all this,” Mitchell said. “It seems like it’s been forever, but I don’t think we’ve thought too much about it. We had a moment when we got here and it was like, ‘Okay, we’re back.'”
The March game was also a turning point in the Gobert-Mitchell relationship, with tensions rising over the transmission of the virus after Mitchell tested positive the next day. The whole chemistry of the Jazz locker room was questioned, with many openly wondering if he would have to give anything away. Would jazz change one of their stars? Could he solve it?
Mitchell admitted that it took him “some time to cool down,” and the two spent a long time without speaking. When the NBA resumed the ball in Florida, Gobert and Mitchell were forced to face the problem and repair the fracture. They realigned with a common goal as a unifier: winning.
Monday’s game fit in for several reasons, but to get Mitchell to give the kick-off and Gobert to produce the winning stoppage presented the formula on which Jazz built their hopes. Snyder referred to the growth the team experienced that night in March, but it is deeper than winning a basketball game almost 10 months later.
“I think we all have such a great appreciation for what we consider to be a normal life,” said the coach. “You can’t help but remember that night; it was significant for both teams, really for the league. But also the contrast between that point and where we are now, the season, the hiatus, the balloon, the comeback and the game again – it seems like a lifetime since that happened. “