The NBA canceled two more games due to COVID-19 and tracking issues, postponing Monday’s Dallas game between the Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans, as well as Tuesday’s game in Chicago between the Bulls and Boston Celtics.
These moves came a day after the Miami game in Boston was canceled due to problems with tracking contacts within the Heat. It would have been a game in which the Celtics had only eight players available after seven were ruled out, according to the league’s health and safety protocols to play in the middle of the pandemic.
The Mavericks-Pelicans and Bulls-Celtics game increases the total number of games postponed this season due to coronavirus problems to four and means the league will have three consecutive days of postponements. The Heat are scheduled to play in Philadelphia on Tuesday – but as of Monday afternoon, they have remained in their Boston hotel, unsure of the next steps. The 76ers played eight available players on Saturday, but only seven of them recovered from a loss to the Denver Nuggets.
Dallas did not have at least eight players allowed to play on Monday, sources for ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski said.
The league said it would meet Monday with the National Association of Basketball Players on “changing the league’s health and safety protocols.” The NBA also scheduled a special meeting of the board of governors for Tuesday, sources told Wojnarowski.
Topics to be discussed at Monday’s hearing, according to sources, are the potential for re-examination of shootings and training, pre-game and post-game socialization in court, additional restaurant restrictions and stricter rules on masked clothing.
There have been four Dallas players on the COVID-19 protocol list since Sunday night, with the latest addition being Maxi Kleber, who tested positive for coronavirus, sources told Tim MacMahon of ESPN. Rookies Josh Richardson and Dorian Finney-Smith, as well as backup Jalen Brunson, have already been ruled out; the three fell behind in Denver after a win over the Nuggets on Thursday and missed Saturday’s win at home against Orlando.
The other game, in addition to Sunday’s Boston-Miami game that was postponed, was the Dec. 23 game between Oklahoma City and Houston. The NBA said on Sunday night that the league anticipated that there would be problems and that it did not intend to interrupt the season due to the current problems facing some teams.
“It was definitely a unique start to the year,” guard Duncan Robinson said Monday in a Reddit appearance. “We were different challenges with all the protocols and the new rules. I think the general feeling is that everyone wants to play, but also everyone wants to be safe first.”
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.