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Tim BontempsESPN
While much of the country tried to grapple with the scenes emerging from Washington on Wednesday afternoon as angry supporters of President Trump stormed the Capitol, much of the sports world was trying to figure out how to cope with the day’s events. .
For the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics, that meant they had to leave the track together shortly before their Miami game, with the two teams making a joint statement just before the tip.
“2021 is a new year, but some things have not changed,” the statement read. “We play tonight’s game with a heavy heart after yesterday’s decision in Kenosha, and knowing that protesters in our country’s capital are treated differently by political leaders depending on which side of certain issues they are on. The difference between the way protesters were treated this past spring and summer and the encouragement given to today’s protesters who were acting illegally only goes to show how much more work we need to do.
“We have decided to play tonight’s game to try and bring joy to people’s lives. But we must not forget the injustices in our society, and we will continue to use our votes and our platform to raise awareness of these issues. and do everything they can to work for a more equal and just America. “
The statement ended with the hashtag “BLACKLIVESSTILLMATTER.”
Most of the players from both teams also knelt during the national anthem.
Following his team’s victory 107-105, Celtics coach Brad Stevens said the game was almost unplayed and that his players would have had ‘the full support of my staff, myself and our organization’ had they chosen to play the game. match. floor.
“We canceled warm-ups and were just sitting in the locker room talking,” Stevens explained. “To be fair, after 30 minutes I didn’t think we were playing. Then the coaches left the room, the players finished talking and chose to play. I called my wife and said to her, ‘I don’t think that we play. “And 10 minutes later we decided to do that.”
Celtics security guard Jaylen Brown, who drove 15 hours from Boston to Atlanta in May to lead a peaceful protest following George Floyd’s death on Memorial Day, opened up his post-game media availability by telling what happened in society .
It reminds me of what Dr. Martin Luther King said there are two different Americas, ”said Brown. “In one America you get killed sleeping in your car, selling cigarettes or playing in your backyard. And then in another America you get to storm the Capitol and no tear gas, no mass arrests, none of that. I think it’s clear, it’s 2021, I don’t think anything has changed. We still want to acknowledge that. We still want to push for the change we’re looking for. But so far we haven’t seen it We want to keep conversations alive and do our part. “
It had been a tumultuous 24 hours, beginning with the prosecutors’ decision on Tuesday not to press charges for the execution of Jacob Blake, a black man, by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on August 23, and culminating in in the violent violation of the US Capitol that forced lawmakers to get to safety when they gathered to formally count the electoral votes that will make Joe Biden president on Jan. 20.
In between, Democrats Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff named winners of the US Senate run-offs in Georgia. Warnock’s opponent, Atlanta Dream co-owner Kelly Loeffler, said Wednesday night she would not object to the election votes for Biden after what happened at the Capitol. She intended to object. Former college football coach and current Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville was one of the few Republican senators to object to Arizona’s certification of electoral votes for president. The challenge was declined.
Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr called the events of the day “a pretty clear reminder that the truth matters.”
“A legitimate election is suddenly being questioned by millions of people, including many of the people who run our country in government, because we have decided to have lies told – for the past few years. So this is who we are. what you sow. “
The Warriors, many of them wearing Black Lives Matter shirts, knelt with the LA Clippers to the national anthem before their game was tipped off Wednesday night at Chase Center.
Because Washington had a curfew from Wednesday 6 p.m. ET to Thursday 6 a.m., George Washington’s men’s basketball game against UMass was postponed on Wednesday night.
Michele Roberts, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski that there have been no talks with the NBA about delaying any of the 11 games scheduled for Wednesday night. The Washington Wizards played against the 76ers in Philadelphia.
And NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said there is no change in the status of this weekend’s wildcard game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Washington Football Team in Landover, Maryland.
However, it was an emotional day around the NBA, as the league tried to grapple with the swirling emotions of the Blake decision, the Senate victories and the storming of the Capitol.
For 76ers coach Doc Rivers, who has been part of many discussions of how the league could use its platform in the Orlando, Florida bubble during the NBA reboot, it was a time to remember that those efforts were not in vain.
“But what it isn’t … is an attack on democracy,” Rivers said, adding, “Democracy will prevail. She always does. ‘
Rivers drew a contrast between how the Black Lives Matter protests were handled in Washington over the summer, with “ the police and the national guard and the military, ” and how the pro-Trump crowd was dealt with on Wednesday – ‘no police dogs turn people on, not clubs hitting people. People peacefully escorted out of the Capitol. So it goes to show that you can disperse a crowd peacefully.
“It actually proves a point about a privileged life in many ways,” Rivers said. “I’ll say it, because I don’t think a lot of people want that: Can you imagine that today all black people were the Capitol storming the Capitol, and what would have happened? That’s a picture to me worth a thousand words we can all see, and probably something for us to reckon with. “
Few places felt the emotions of the past 24 hours more than Atlanta, where Warnock became the first black man to be elected to the Senate by the state of Georgia.
But for Lloyd Pierce, the Atlanta Hawks’ coach who was at the forefront of the organization’s drive to vote in both the November general election and the special election that just took place, what he saw on Wednesday was not unexpected. .
“It’s tragic,” said Pierce. “I honestly think it’s sad. I think it’s a sad reality … It’s a shame this is what we’re looking at in our country after the year we’ve been through. But it’s not unexpected. One day before someone like me, an African American man, to see someone like Raphael Warnock become the first African American man to represent the state of Georgia to go to the Senate, and you see the next day that this is the reaction is, this is reality. ‘
Pierce reiterated Rivers in noting the discrepancy in the way the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol were treated by local authorities, compared to the treatment of those who protested mostly peacefully during the summer.
“There’s a reason there’s no shootings and brutality and looting and things like that, and people just walk through the Capitol like it’s nothing. [Speaker of the House] Nancy Pelosi’s office like it’s nothing, ”he said. We all understand that now it would have been guns and fires if black people protested. If those were black people protesting on the outside – then we haven’t even talked about people going in and tearing it up [Capitol] building.
“But that’s not going to change until we recognize that there is a huge difference in the way black people are treated with regard to law enforcement, and it just hasn’t happened.”
And in the midst of it all, players and coaches tried to figure out how to stay focused on the task at hand while recording everything that was going on around them.
“There are so many layers in it,” said Houston Rockets coach Stephen Silas. “There’s what’s going on in the Capitol, and then there’s the why, and then there’s the why – the division and all this other stuff. There’s a long history of division in our country when it comes to political parties. , but it seems like there is more division in humanity right now. That’s what I’m struggling with right now and what I’m struggling with. ”
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson also spoke of the need to “come together as a nation,” adding “we need security for our children and people.”
Others expressed disbelief about the day’s events.
“I’m 59 and I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Orlando Magic coach Steve Clifford. “Our country, we are being laughed at all over the world. From the way we handled the pandemic to this … it’s a sad day for everyone.”
In Phoenix, where the Suns and Toronto Raptors stood in a circle and bandaged arms for the US and Canadian national anthems, Suns coach Monty Williams said that as a former athlete and now coach, he is aware of the platform he’s been given, together with other professional athletes, “to help out when we can. We don’t necessarily solve problems, but we can be part of some of the solutions.”
But, “When I look at what I see and what I have seen earlier in the day, I find it difficult to think of ways to help such a situation. I don’t know how to be part of that solution,” as it pertains to what happened today. “
ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, Dave McMenamin, Royce Young and Ohm Youngmisuk contributed to this report.