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Tim BontempsESPN
While much of the country tried to confront the scenes that emerged from Washington on Wednesday afternoon, while angry supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol, much of the sports world was trying to figure out how to process the events. of the day.
For the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics, that meant leaving the track together shortly before their game in Miami, with the two teams issuing a joint statement just before the game’s departure.
“2021 is a new year, but some things have not changed,” the statement said. “We play tonight’s match with a heavy heart after yesterday’s decision in Kenosha, and knowing that protesters in our nation’s capital are treated differently by political leaders depending on which side of certain issues The drastic difference between the way the protesters spent last spring and summer was treated and the encouragement given to today’s protesters who acted illegally only demonstrates the amount of work we have to do.
“We have decided to play the game tonight to try to bring joy to people’s lives. But we must not forget the injustices of our society and we will continue to use our voices and our platform to highlight these issues and do everything the possible to work for a more egalitarian and just America. “
The statement concluded with the label “BLACKLIVESSTILLMATTER”.
Most players from both teams also got on their knees during the national anthem.
After his team’s 107-105 victory, Celtics coach Brad Stevens said the game was very close to not being played and that his players would have had “the full support of my staff, of me and of our organization ”if they had chosen not to take the party flat.
“We undid the warm-up and sat in the locker room and talked,” Stevens explained. “Honestly, at 30 minutes, I didn’t think we were playing. Then the coaches came out of the room, the players finished talking and chose to play. I called my wife and said, ‘I don’t think we’re playing. . “Ten minutes later, we had decided.”
Celtics guard Jaylen Brown, who drove 15 hours from Boston to Atlanta in May to lead a peaceful protest after the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day, opened his media availability after the game tackled what has happened to society.
“It reminds me of what Dr. Martin Luther King has said, that there are two divided Americas,” Brown said. “In one America, you die sleeping in the car, selling cigarettes or playing in the backyard. And then in another America, you get to storm the Capitol and you don’t have tear gas, no mass arrests, nothing. So I think it’s obvious , it’s 2021, I don’t think anything has changed. We want to acknowledge it. We 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 Tuesday’s prosecutors’ decision not to file charges for the shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man, by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Aug. 23. and culminated in the violent violation of the U.S. Capitol that forced lawmakers to security when they met to formally count the election votes that will make Joe Biden president on Jan. 20.
Between the two Democrats, the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff were named the winners of the U.S. Senate qualifiers in Georgia. Warnock opponent Atlanta Dream co-owner Kelly Loeffler said Wednesday night she would not oppose the election votes for Biden after what happened at the Capitol. He had planned to oppose it. Former college football coach and current Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville was one of the few Republican senators who opposed Arizona’s certification of presidential votes. The challenge was rejected.
Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr called the day’s events “a pretty clear reminder that truth matters.”
“Suddenly, millions of people are questioning legitimate elections, including many of the people who lead our country in government, because we have decided, in recent years, to allow lies to be told. So that’s who we are. You guys what you sow. “
The Warriors, many of them wearing Black Lives Matter jerseys, knelt in the anthem along with the LA Clippers before their game began Wednesday night at the Chase Center.
With Washington in a curfew from 6 a.m. Wednesday to 6 a.m. Thursday, George Washington’s men’s basketball game against UMass was postponed to Wednesday night.
Michele Roberts, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski that there were no talks with the NBA about postponing any of the 11 games scheduled for Wednesday night. The Washington Wizards played the 76ers in Philadelphia.
And NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said there has been no change in the state of the wildcard game this weekend between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Washington football team in Landover, Maryland. .
Around the NBA, however, it was an emotional day as the league tried to deal with the swirling emotions of Blake’s decision, Senate victories and the Capitol storm.
For 76ers coach Doc Rivers, who was part of many discussions about how the league could use its platform in the Orlando, Florida bubble during the NBA restart, it was a time to remember that these efforts have not been in vain.
“But what is not … is an attack on democracy,” said Rivers, who added, “Democracy will prevail. It always does.”
Rivers drew a contrast between how Black Lives Matter protests were handled over the summer in Washington, with “police and the National Guard and the military,” and how the pro-Trump crowd was treated Wednesday: “no police dogs activated people, there were no clubs beating people. People were escorted peacefully outside the Capitol. So it shows that you can peacefully disperse a crowd.
“It basically demonstrates 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 to: Can you imagine today, if they were all blacks storming the Capitol, and what would have happened? That, to me, is worth a picture worth a thousand words for all of us to see. -these, and probably something for which we consider “.
Meanwhile, few places felt the emotions of the last 24 hours more than Atlanta, where Warnock became the first black man elected to the Senate by the state of Georgia.
But for Lloyd Pierce, the Atlanta Hawks coach who has been at the forefront of the organization’s push to get the ballot in both the November general election and the upcoming special election, which saw Wednesday was not unexpected. .
“It’s tragic,” Pierce said. “I think it’s sad, honestly. I think it’s a sad reality … It’s unfortunate that it’s what we’re seeing in our country after last year. But it’s not unexpected. A day for 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 going to the Senate and see the next day this is the reaction, this is the reality. “
Pierce echoed Rivers in pointing out the discrepancy in the way local authorities treated Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, compared to what those who protested peacefully during the summer did.
“There’s a reason there’s no shooting, brutality and looting and stuff like that, and people just walk around the Capitol building like it’s nothing. And people sitting in [Speaker of the House] Nancy Pelosi’s office as if it were nothing, “he said.” We all understand that now it would have been the guns fired and the fires lit if the blacks were protesting. If it was black people protesting outside, we didn’t even mention people going in and out. [Capitol] building.
“But none of that will change until we recognize that there is a big difference in the treatment of black people when it comes to law enforcement, and that hasn’t happened.”
And, in the middle of it all, players and coaches were trying to figure out how to stay focused on the task they were carrying out by taking everything that was going on around them.
“There are so many layers,” said Stephen Silas, Houston Rockets coach. “There’s what’s going on in the Capitol building, and then there’s the why, and then there’s the why, the division and all that. 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 fighting and fighting for right now. “
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson also spoke of the need to “unite as a nation,” adding, “We need security for our children and people.”
Others expressed disbelief in the facts of the day.
“I’m 59 and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Orlando Magic coach Steve Clifford said. “In our country, we’re laughing all over the world. From the way we’ve dealt with the pandemic to that … it’s a sad day for everyone.”
In Phoenix, where the Suns and Toronto Raptors lined up and tied their arms to American and Canadian anthems, Suns coach Monty Williams said that as a former athlete and now coach, he is aware of the platform that they have given him, along with other professional athletes, “to help when we can. We don’t necessarily have to solve problems, but we can be part of some of the solutions.”
But, “when I look at what I see and what I saw before today, I find it hard to figure out ways to help in a situation like this. I don’t know how to be a part of this solution as it relates to what happened today.”
ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, Dave McMenamin, Royce Young and Ohm Youngmisuk contributed to this report.