Start of Monday’s Heat home game vs. Pistons is delayed until 8 p.m. Here are the details
The Miami Heat’s home game against the Detroit Pistons on Monday will begin a few hours later than expected.
The start of Monday’s matchup between the Heat and Pistons at AmericanAirlines Arena on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which was originally scheduled to begin at 3 p.m., has been moved to 8 p.m because of the league’s health and safety protocols.
Both teams have enough available players to meet the NBA minimum of eight to play a game, but the switch was made to allow for more time for COVID-19 testing to be processed prior to the contest. The change is not related to a player testing positive for the virus.
“Guys are showing up for their testing and we found out from the league that we were going to have to delay it until we received all the tests back,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said before Monday’s contest. “We have the saying, expect the unexpected. It has turned into expect the expected because basically this is our world right now. There are unpredictable things that are happening virtually daily.”
The NBA recently ramped up game-day testing amid the uptick of COVID-19 cases around the league, which played a part in Monday’s delay.
“All the tests from today had to be back,” Spoelstra said. “I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus. I think the 3 o’clock game was a curveball. Look, everybody in the NBA, there’s nobody at fault on this. Everybody is dealing with so much and nobody was prepared to handle this additional workload. It never would have been an issue if it was an 8 o’clock game or 7 o’clock game. It was the 3 o’clock turnaround that had to be adjusted to.”
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While the Heat’s game against the Pistons is still scheduled to be played Monday, albeit at a later time, Miami has already had one of its games postponed this season because of COVID-19 issues.
The Heat’s Jan. 10 matchup against the Boston Celtics at TD Garden was postponed because of the NBA’s health and safety protocols. Miami did not have the NBA minimum of eight available players to proceed with the game due to an ongoing contact-tracing investigation.
Six Heat players returned to play in Saturday’s loss to the Pistons after missing the previous two games because of the league’s health and safety protocols: Bam Adebayo, Goran Dragic, Moe Harkless, Udonis Haslem, Kendrick Nunn and KZ Okpala.
But COVID-19 protocols will force Heat All-Star wing Jimmy Butler and veteran guard Avery Bradley to miss their fourth consecutive game Monday.
The NBA has postponed 15 games since the Dec. 22 start of the season because of the health and safety protocols, and 14 postponements have come since Jan. 10.
Following Monday’s contest, the Heat begins a four-game trip on Wednesday against the Toronto Raptors in Tampa, where the Raptors have been temporarily relocated to due to COVID-19-related travel restrictions in Canada. That trip also includes another game against the Raptors on Friday, before it comes to an end with two straight games against the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday and next Monday.
“In many ways, I’m amazing at players and how much they’ve been able to adapt and just roll with it,” Spoelstra said. “If you said a year ago that these would be the requirements and the protocols that you would have to go through every single day to play this game, you probably would think to yourself there’s not a chance that everybody would be willing to do that.
“Not only are guys willing to do it, but they’re not complaining about it. They understand it’s extreme circumstances, it’s an extraordinary time. It takes some flexibility, adaptability, some sacrifice. Everybody is doing their part just to make sure that we’re able to continue.”
