The National Basketball Association postponed another three games Friday as a result of positive tests for the novel coronavirus or contact tracing protocols, making 13 in the last week that had to be deferred because of a widening impact on the league.
Games in Washington between the (Washington) Wizards and Cleveland Cavaliers scheduled for Sunday and Monday were postponed as was the Minnesota Timberwolves’ matchup against the Memphis Grizzlies in Minneapolis set for Friday.
The Wizards’ game Friday against the Detroit Pistons had previously been postponed due to contact tracing protocols that reduced the number of eligible players to less than the required eight. The Timberwolves had to call off their game for the same reason.
It was the sixth consecutive day that games were postponed by the NBA, which on Tuesday announced additional COVID-19 protocols — including restricting players to their residences when at home and the team hotel on the road — to mitigate the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.
Despite the growing number of postponements, ESPN reported numerous unidentified team health officials and executives as saying they didn’t think the league would suspend play or return to the isolation model — or bubble — it used to complete last season at the Disney World sports complex near Orlando.
"Nobody wanting to go back to a long bubble period of play has put us in this position," the website quoted an anonymous Western Conference general manager as saying. "It is doable but suboptimal."
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