The league says the priority is filling ABC’s time slot, so if games need to be postponed, others could be moved.
The 10 NBA teams with games scheduled on Christmas were told by the league Tuesday that shifting some game times is a possibility for the planned five-game slate, if virus-related issues force changes to the lineup. The league told the teams the priority is filling the ABC windows for Saturday’s games, which means the slots at 2:30 p.m.,5 p.m. and 8 p.m. For now, those games, in order, would have Boston at Milwaukee, Golden State at Phoenix and Brooklyn at the Los Angeles Lakers. The other games on the Christmas schedule are Atlanta at New York at noon, and Dallas at Utah at 10:30 p.m. Both of those games are scheduled to be shown on ESPN. The league called the notion of shifting game times – which may happen if a game is postponed – a contingency plan in the memo distributed to the teams involved and obtained by The Associated Press. Decisions on whether shifting times is needed could come as late as Friday. Any decisions made on Saturday to postpone a Christmas game would not impact the remainder of the day’s schedule, the league said.
