Nothing has gone in response to plan during the last 36 hours for the Spurs. First, in a recreation that in hindsight ought to have been postponed, what was imagined to be a 2:00 PM CT recreation in Charlotte yesterday acquired moved again to 11:00 AM with the hopes being the Spurs would be capable to play and get out earlier than the upcoming winter storm hit. Sadly, it was already snowing by tip-off, and after sitting on the tarmac for 2 hours hoping the runways could be cleared, the Spurs flight was canceled, they usually have been pressured to remain in a single day. Because of this the tip-off for right now’s recreation at house vs. the Orlando Magic was moved again from 3:00 PM CT to six:00.
Nonetheless, right now hasn’t been clean crusing, both. San Antonio Categorical Information’ Tom Orsborn has been monitoring the Spurs’ odyssey to return house right now, and it has been everybody’s worse nightmare. After lastly leaving Charlotte at little after 10 AM, they have been pressured to land in Atlanta to alter planes after their’s suffered mechanical points, inflicting one other prolonged delay.
They lastly took off from Atlanta round 1:30 PM CT, and with the flight taking roughly two hours, they need to land in San Antonio round 3:30 PM. That will not give them sufficient time to get to the sector and adequately put together and heat up, so because of this, the sport has now been pushed again once more to eight:00 PM CT.
So as to add insult to damage, Stephon Fortress and Victor Wembanyama have been listed as questionable for tonight’s recreation, with adductor and calf soreness, respectively. (Feels like code for potential relaxation video games since they’re referring to earlier accidents, however most of those eventualities have resulted within the gamers taking part in, so hopefully that continues, particularly with the added time earlier than tip-off.)
This state of affairs is in contrast to something I’ve seen a workforce undergo forward of a recreation, and actually, the Spurs needs to be utterly forgiven if they’ll’t pull out a win tonight. They by no means ought to have been put on this state of affairs to start with, and it looks like each different recreation that occurred within the eye of this storm was correctly dealt with. Whereas right now’s mechanical points will not be the fault of the NBA, I really feel like the sport in Charlotte by no means ought to have occurred, and now they’re in a virtually unwinnable state of affairs tonight. In the event that they do in some way pull this one off, it simply is likely to be their most spectacular achievement of the season.
Oh, and in the event that they win and the Nuggets lose to the Thunder, Mitch Johnson might be an All-Star coach. There’s some added motivation for tonight.
