Jazz and Lakers beat Pelicans and Clippers on the first night of official games in the Orlando bubble.
Lakers and Clippers players, kneeling during the anthem.
The NBA He finally came back after more than four months of absence. Did it in Disney World, in Orlando, Florida. In one of the areas hardest hit by the pandemic of Covid-19, in a country that counts millions of infected cases (4.5 million, 68,000 in the last hours) and by hundreds of thousands the deceased (154.000, 1,231 on the last day).
Florida has not escaped the virus, but the NBA is trying. In a Disney bubble turned into anti-coronavirus bnker, without public, with Jazz, Pelicans, Lakers y Clippers opening official meetings, with the rest of the stars of the league as luxury spectators in the stands and with the knee on the ground in a sign of eternal protest for police brutality. NBA, NBA players, NBA stars, NBA coaches… They have become the most responsible for social demands, and they will not stop.
“We are dealing with a lot of racism, a lot of social injustice and police brutality “, stressed LeBron James, who joined the line of Lakers and Clippers players who, mixed on the court, they kneeled in a historical image. “This is a good start, but we cannot stop. We will keep our foot on the gas as we have for the past two months,” he said.
Along the same lines and in a speech vital to the interests of the league was Adam Silver, Commissioner of the competition: “I respect the unified act of peaceful protest of our teams for social justice“Summarized Silver, who assured that under” these unique circumstances “the league will not punish those who do not stand up during the anthem, something that has been ‘official’ in the NBA since the 1980s.
Anti-racist messages on T-shirts
In addition, the NBA has allowed players to change their first and last names to messages in support of social justice, the fight for racial rights or equality. They just had to keep their number. Nothing else.
Donovan Mitchell, a star of the Utah Jazz, showed the media a bulletproof vest with several of the names of the people who died at the hands of the police. “We are sick of being afraid. It doesn’t matter how much money you have or if you’re famous. As an African-American man, that’s what you are, “he said. Later, Mitchell again claimed on Twitter the arrest of the policemen who killed in March Breonna Taylor, a nurse who was shot by agents who broke into her apartment as part of an operation to capture a suspect who was already detained.
In sports: the Lakers
As for basketball, the most interesting thing of the night was to see Zion Williamson and the duel between the two teams of The Angels, main candidates for the ring.
Zion was on time to duel against the Jazz after dropping the bubble for a family matter, but he couldn’t do enough to beat Utah, a more compact team than the Pelicans, who are still struggling to get into the Playoffs. Jordan Clarkson scored 23 points, while Donovan Mitchell went to 20 to lead those in Salt Lake City in a tight victory (104-106). Williamson stayed at just 13 points, away from 23 Brandon Ingram, New Orleans’ top scorer.
In the second duel of the night, LeBron James and Anthony Davis outnumbered the Clippers from Paul George y Kawhi Leonard in a warning of what could be the final of the Western Conference. James, scored the basket of victory in the last seconds, on an even scoreboard despite the fact that the Lakers came to have a nine point advantage in the last minutes (96-87). George had the option to score the triple final, but err and the purple and gold took the victory (103-101).
LeBron ended the meeting with 16 points, eleven rebounds and seven assists, while Anthony Davis, team leader for almost the entire game, went all the way to 34 points and eight rebounds. In the Clippers, 30 points from Paul George and 28 from Kawhi Leonard, insufficient to beat their maximum rivals.
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