Nuggets coach Michael Malone said Wednesday he wouldn’t expect any of his fellow NBA coaches to “stand in anybody’s way” if players decided to not play in playoff games in protest of Sunday’s police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisc.
His comments came roughly an hour before the start of Game 5 between Milwaukee and Orlando, where the Bucks made history by not taking the court in protest of racial injustice.
Shortly thereafter, the NBA announced that all three playoff games scheduled for Wednesday night had been postponed, including games between Houston and Oklahoma City and the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland.
“By no means, I think, are any of the head coaches going to stand in anybody’s way,” Malone said early Wednesday afternoon. “If our players came to me tomorrow and said we don’t feel comfortable playing, obviously I would support that. That has not been conveyed in any way, shape or form from our guys to this point.”
Malone made clear that there had been “zero talks” about players opting out of playing in the Utah-Denver series, however those comments came before Wednesday’s landmark moment.
“That has not come up in our series at all,” Malone said.
Players and coaches inside the bubble met later Wednesday night to discuss what the next steps might be, according to multiple media reports. There was no word what might happen with Thursday’s games, including Denver’s Game 6.
When asked about the Boston-Toronto series, where early conversations about not playing began, Malone said it came down to an individual’s decision. During Denver’s media availability on Wednesday, it wasn’t known publicly that other teams were considering it as well.
“Itap tough because there’s times during the day where you don’t even want to think about basketball because there’s just so much going on in the world, and then at the same time, you gotta prepare for a win-or-go-home playoff game,” Michael Porter Jr. said Wednesday. “So, itap really hard of a balance for us NBA players. … The stuff going on in the world is way bigger than basketball. For us, I feel like people look up to us and so when we talk about these things, itap good for the world to realize how much it means to us, too.”
WE DEMAND JUSTICE!!!
— Jamal Murray (@BeMore27)
Itap a difference between them hearing us and them listening! Time for sum to shake
— PJ Dozier (@Dozier_Kid)
— Denver Nuggets (@nuggets)
Before Malone took questions at Tuesday’s pregame news conference, he brought up the Blake shooting on his own and spoke about the delicate balance of playing meaningful basketball games amid social unrest outside the bubble.
“I know itap come up with Boston players and Toronto players, and obviously understanding the impetus behind that discussion, the fear of not doing enough,” he said. “We’re playing basketball, but the same things keep happening and happening and happening. I applaud the conversation, and I understand where the players are coming from.”
