The Cleveland Cavaliers were a low-win lottery team last season (and the three seasons prior) that made a couple of offseason additions that have propelled them up the standings and into the mix for homecourt advantage in the Eastern Conference. In other words, they are this year’s Atlanta Hawks.
The two teams, flush with useful players and upside, were supposed to meet this past weekend in Atlanta in a rematch of an early-season contest. That game, a 101-95 Cleveland win, saw Evan Mobley break out as a defensive maestro capable of stonewalling Trae Young and sealing off the rim. The second meeting this past Sunday could have served as another measuring stick for the Cavs against a solid Eastern Conference foe.
Instead, the game was postponed suddenly when five players on the Cavs entered the health and safety protocols, bringing the team’s total to seven; that number sits at eight at the time of writing, including three starters in Mobley, Jarrett Allen and Isaac Okoro. The Hawks have a number of players themselves in the protocols, including Young and Danillo Gallinari.
The Cavaliers’ game against the Hawks was postponed. Should they just cancel it?
The game was merely one of 82, which could be reason enough to cancel the game outright. The league is incentivized not to do so, however, as each game is another portion of the NBA’s television contracts. The Cavs’ complete absence from national television games means they have more of a local television buffer than most, but the NBA doesn’t want to set a precedent. For now, all 82 games must be played.
This particular game is also meaningful, and not just because two similar teams would hopefully produce a competitive and entertaining game. It’s very likely that the Cavs and Hawks finish close in the standings, and potentially even tied. This game could ultimately decide the tiebreaker between the two teams, and dictate homecourt advantage in the first round.
That being the case, the game has to move somewhere, and the schedule is packed with games as it is. Last year the NBA waited to publish its second-half schedule so as to identify which games would need to be rescheduled; this year the schedule is in place for the whole season, and arenas have booked out their open dates for concerts, shows and other events.
When could the two teams play the rescheduled game?
When could the game be moved to? The options are slim. It doesn’t make sense to put it back on the calendar in the next few weeks, with Omicron still ravaging rosters. No one wants to reschedule it for a second time. Yet the schedules for the two teams do not match up well to find a lot of replacement dates.
Two options stand out. The first would be the easiest, the one night on the entire calendar both teams have free without triggering three games in-a-row for one team or the other: March 31st.
Both teams play Wednesday, March 30th. The Cavaliers are in Cleveland to host the Dallas Mavericks, while the Atlanta Hawks are in Oklahoma City to face the Thunder. They are both free on the 31st and the 1st of April, providing the only slot in the entire schedule where a game could just be inserted. The flight from Oklahoma to Atlanta is a little longer than from Cleveland, but it’s not unreasonable for a team to jump a single time zone and play on a back-to-back.
The other option would require a slight adjustment to some players and their vacation plans. In February the All-Star break is scheduled to begin on Friday, February 18th. The two teams could meet that day and push back their All-Star Break by a day for everyone involved. That’s hardly ideal, but it is a pocket in the schedule.
The more creative solution would be to work it into the All-Star Break itself as something of a showcase game. The game is supposed to be played in Atlanta, but if they swap their game next week to Atlanta instead of Cleveland (insane and unlikely, but just roll with me) they could play this game in Cleveland, a matinee game to kick off All-Star Weekend in Cleveland. The Cavs’ young team, good for the first time in years, on center stage as they host basketball’s weekend of festivities.
That’s basically it for open dates. The two teams could play a day after the season ends, but that becomes problematic if either is in range of the play-in tournament. Other games could be moved around, but that hardly seems ideal and would cause shockwaves downstream throughout the league. This isn’t baseball where you schedule a same-day double header.
If the two teams and State Farm Arena cannot come to an agreement on March 31st, it’s very possible this game disappears into the ether. The last two seasons have produced uneven game totals, so that isn’t the end of the world, and given the insanity of this virus it just may not be possible to fit every game in.
If they do, look for March 31st as a potential date for these two teams to meet. Depending on how next week’s game goes, it could be a tiebreaker game, or dictate where these two teams fall in the Eastern Conference standings. By that point, the Cavs will have either fallen back to earth, or established themselves as a legitimate force in the East.