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The game Thursday between the Brooklyn Nets and Portland Trail Blazers at Moda Center in Portland has been postponed due to COVID-19. The Nets don’t have the minimum amount of players to field a team and aren’t able to play. This comes just a few days before Brooklyn is expected to play the Los Angeles Lakers on Christmas Day.
This is the third straight game the Nets have had to postpone because of players being placed in health and safety protocols. As of now, basically the entire roster is in COVID protocols, including PG Kyrie Irving, who rejoined the team last week. The hope is Irving will be able to play part-time in road games, unable to play in New York City because of the vaccine mandate.
It’s unclear at this point if the Nets will be able to get players cleared in time for X-Mas. If that’s the case, we could see that game moved, which would be a first. The Atlanta Hawks are dealing with a similar sort of outbreak. It hasn’t reached the point of postponing Hawks-Knicks on Christmas Day. It could get to that point. Trae Young is among the players in protocols for ATL and without him, that game loses a lot of luster.