It is the second time this season the league has had a game postponed because of health and safety protocols.
Boston was going to have to face Miami with the NBA minimum of eight players on Sunday night. In the end, the Heat weren’t even certain they would have that many. The game between Boston and Miami was postponed — not because the Celtics ruled out seven players due to the league’s health and safety protocols for playing during the coronavirus pandemic, but because of concerns about exposure within the Heat roster. The Heat learned earlier Sunday that guard Avery Bradley would not be available for the game in Boston because of the COVID-19 protocols. That meant the Heat had to go through the contact tracing data, and with that process still ongoing late Sunday afternoon, the decision was made to postpone the game out of abundance of caution. The league announced the decision about two hours before the scheduled tipoff. “You are starting to see what is going on in our country directly affect the NBA because we are no longer in that safety net of the bubble,” Denver coach Michael Malone said in New York, where his team was facing the Knicks, after learning of the postponement. The Celtics would have been without seven players for the game due to the NBA’s COVID-19 protocols, all of them ruled out earlier Sunday, along with two others because of injury. That would have left Boston with only eight available players, the league minimum. The Heat didn’t even have that many cleared by the NBA to play, hence the decision to postpone. The team was staying in Boston overnight while the tracing process continued and is scheduled to play in Philadelphia — another team with virus-related issues — on Tuesday and Thursday.
