The Boston Celtics would have been incredibly shorthanded for their game against the Miami Heat on Sunday night. On their authority injury report, the Celtics recorded a total of nine players as out against the Heat. Seven of those nonattendances – Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Tristan Thompson, Semi Ojeleye, Grant Williams, Robert Williams, and Javonte Green – are because of players being placed in the league’s health and security protocols in the midst of the progressing COVID-19 pandemic. Tatum and Robert Williams both allegedly tested positive for the virus. Two different players – Kemba Walker and Romeo Langford – were set to be out because of injury issues.
With those players sidelined, the Celtics would have just had eight players accessible to get ready against the Heat on Sunday. Those eight players are Tacko Fall, Aaron Nesmith, Payton Pritchard, Marcus Smart, Daniel Theis, Tremont Waters, Carsen Edwards, and Jeff Teague.
While the league was wanting to allow for the Celtics to push ahead and play this tonight’s game with that eight-man roster, Shams Charania of The Athletic is revealing that the game has been deferred after an unidentified Heat player returned an uncertain COVID-19 test leaving Miami with less than the league commanded eight accessible players to contend because of contact tracing.
Soon after the reports from Charania and Wojnarowski, the league gave a statement formally declaring the deferment taking note of how the Heat needed more players to handle an eight-man program because of contact following.
“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.”
League representative Mike Bass additionally presented the following statement to Sopan Deb of The New York Times after the declaration that the challenge between Miami and Boston would be deferred.
“We anticipated that there would be game postponements this season and planned this season accordingly. There are no plans to pause the season. We will continue to be guided by our medical experts and our health and safety protocols.”
Notwithstanding the deferment, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.com is detailing that the league has no plans to stop the season as of now despite the fact that rosters all through the league have been diminishing a result of COVID-19 protocols in a few places.
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