The NBA postponed Tuesday night’s game between the Chicago Bulls and the Boston Celtics, following in line with their health and safety protocols for COVID-19. No makeup date has been announced.
Boston had seven players in the health and safety protocols, which led to a postponed game Sunday against the Miami Heat because they could not dress the minimum eight players required for a game.
This was the second game to be postponed by the NBA on Monday afternoon, after the league also announced a matchup between the New Orleans Pelicans and Dallas Mavericks would be postponed. That makes four games — including an opening night meeting between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets — that have been postponed so far.
The NBA attempted to gameplan for this at the start of the year, reducing the number of games, expanding rosters, releasing an oversized health and safety manual and only revealing the first half of the schedule to make room for rescheduled games. But they are finding out just how hard it is to navigate through a season outside of a bubble.
The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association are scheduled to meet Monday to discuss adjustments to their health and safety protocols, and perhaps, solutions such as expanding rosters.
The Bulls have not been able to avoid the virus through the start of the season.
Garrett Temple tested positive for COVID-19 at the start of training camp. Noah Vonleh also tested positive in camp before he was waived by the team. Chandler Hutchison was finally scheduled to travel back to Chicago on Monday, after being held back in D.C. since the team’s last road trip on Dec. 31 following his own positive test. Both he and Tomas Satoransky, who tested positive shortly after, are both still unavailable.
But the team was hopeful Lauri Markkanen and Ryan Arcidiacono, who have been out because of contact tracing, would be able to rejoin them this week after continuing to test negative.
