After only having guard Trey Burke miss two games earlier this season due to the NBA’s healthy and safety protocols, the Dallas Mavericks suddenly had two more COVID-19-related cases involving their players pop up entering Sunday’s road
game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The Mavs announced Saturday that guard Reggie Bullock would be sidelined for the game against Minnesota due to the health and safety protocols. And before Sunday’s 111-105 loss to the Timberwolves, the Mavs announced that guard Josh Green would also miss the game against Minnesota because of the health and safety protocols.
Also, assistant coaches Darrell Armstrong and Jared Dudley have been placed in the health and safety protocols, according to coach Jason Kidd.
Considering the wave of NBA players who have been having COVID-19 issues, this probably comes as no surprise to the Mavs. Especially since they played a Los Angeles Laker squad Wednesday who is experiencing multiple COVID-19 cases, including to their coach, Frank Vogel.
The Mavs even canceled Saturday’s practice in Dallas before flying out to Minnesota. Also, Kidd said he performed Zoom meetings with his coaches in preparation for the game against Minnesota, and didn’t have a Sunday morning shootaround and didn’t meet in-person with his players until 40 minutes prior to the game against the Timberwolves.
“With everything just happening in the last 24 hours, we’re trying to get things in place,” Kidd said. “And a lot of guys are going to probably think it’s like it first started with all the testing that’s going to start coming.
“There’s going to be a lot of Zoom meetings, because we’re just trying to do the best that we can do to stay away from each other so that we can play in the game.”
As with other teams, the Mavs have been overly concerned about the uptick in COVID-19 cases around the NBA and the resurgence of the Omicron variant.
“We talked about it before the Laker game with the Lakers having COVID issues – how concerned we were being a team that didn’t have any COVID issues up to that point until after they left,” Kidd said. “Then we had spoken too soon, and now we have COVID issues.
“So we’ve got to just listen to the league and try to do the best that we can.”
Players such as Brooklyn’s Kevin Durant, James Harden, Kyrie Irving and LaMarcus Aldridge, Atlanta’s Trae Young, Chicago’s Zach Levine, Cleveland’s Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, Denver’s Michael Porter Jr., Golden State’s Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins, Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bobby Portis and Donte DiVincenzo, Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards and many, many others have all been in the health and safety protocols at some point this season.
In addition, Indiana coach Rick Carlisle and Sacramento coach Alvin Gentry join Vogel as coaches who have been in the health and safety protocols.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Bulls had so many players in the health and safety protocols that two of their games this past week were postponed. Besides the two Bulls’ games, the NBA also postponed five other games on Sunday as the COVID-19 outbreak continues to
have a negative impact on the league.
“This is not just us, but you see games being canceled,” Kidd said. “This isn’t going to go away today, tomorrow or the next day.
“This is going to be here for a while. So we just got to figure out how to do the right thing.”
That’s a sentiment shared by Timberwolves coach Chris Finch, who said of the league’s new health and safety protocol rules: “I guess it’s being handled as best it can be given the constraints that we’ve put ourselves under with the testing and the playing and the protocols and kind of rolling the dice at this stage. It’s only a matter of time until probably the numbers flare up again for those teams that haven’t had it.
“You may have a bunch of negatives, you may be fine. But a team has a bunch of late positives and three days later, boom! That’s just what it is.”
And because there’s no way for anyone to know when and where COVID-19 will strike, challenges are plentiful to coaches coming up with a particular strategic game plan.
“As we all know that a test can come before the game and someone can be ruled out, so we go with a plan and then we have to make the adjustments,” Kidd said. “Just like in a game, if someone is going well you’re going to have to change your game plan and do something different defensively or offensively.
“So for us as a staff we have to pay attention to who’s on the floor, but pay attention to who’s in and who’s out. For us it’s stick to the game plan. We’ll give them a game plan and then we’ll make the adjustments as the game goes on.”
BRIEFLY: In addition to Reggie Bullock and Josh Green missing Sunday’s game due to the health and safety protocols, Luka Doncic (left ankle soreness), Frank Ntilikina (illness), Eugene Omoruyi (right foot injury) and Willie Cauley-Stein (personal reasons) also sat out the game against the Timberwolves. And Kristaps Porzingis left Sunday’s game for good midway through the third quarter with right foot soreness. It was the fourth straight game Doncic has missed while nursing this injury. . .Former Mavs guard Deron Williams won via a split decision over former NFL running back Frank Gore in a boxing exhibition Saturday night in Tampa, Fla. The match lasted four rounds and Williams won 38-37, 37-38 and 40-35. A native of The Colony, Williams played for the Mavs from 2015-’17.
Twitter: @DwainPrice
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