Sights, sounds, color from an emotional night in Philadelphia

Sixers Wire’s Ky Carlin describes the mood and reactions at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia when the NBA season was suspended.

[jwplayer 2kXBtlIo]

PHILADELPHIA — At halftime of the Wednesday night matchup between the Philadelphia 76ers and Detroit Pistons in which Joel Embiid was making a big return to the Wells Fargo Center floor, a notification scrolled across my phone:

Thunder-Jazz delayed in OKC 

My first thought was the coronavirus. What else could it possibly be? Especially when the video went viral of Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert playfully touching all of the reporters’ microphones in Utah two days ago. All signs pointed to that.

Did I think the game would be postponed? No way. The fans were all there. The players were in uniform; it was time for tipoff. Then, another notification popped up on my phone in the third quarter in Philadelphia.

Thunder-Jazz game has been postponed

At this point, I look over at a colleague of mine with his eyes widened and just shaking his head. I had the same reaction, and from that point on, the 76ers-Pistons game seemed meaningless. What was going on at the Wells Fargo Center was meaningless. I kept refreshing Twitter waiting for something new to be reported.

Eventually, nothing moved other than the video of Gobert continuing to be shared. Reports poured in that the Jazz-Thunder situation was being investigated and that Gobert was not even at Chesapeake Energy Arena, so I assumed things were fine.

The final buzzer sounds. Philadelphia 124, Detroit 106. The 76ers theme song is playing, and I’m headed to the press conference room. As soon as I sit down, boom. Shams Charania tweets it.

 

I was in shock. One reporter in the room gasped. That same colleague from earlier immediately got up out of his seat and ran off to write about it for his outlet.

Then Charania dropped another bomb.

At this point, media members are murmuring to each other. We’re confused. We’re concerned. We don’t know what’s coming next.

Then, Sixers media relations representatives came out and said we’re not allowed to talk to the players, and we’ll only get postgame access to general manager Elton Brand and head coach Brett Brown. Their media availability lasted all of 2:08 and three questions. Nobody else could come up with anything to ask after the news.

Said Brown,“If you follow the league, and you have to have faith in the league, and we do and Adam Silver is an amazing leader. We’re a part of this NBA brotherhood, and the instruction was to come in and play the game. If you look at the proactive measures our club has taken and the league has taken, I think they should be applauded.”

After it was over, I couldn’t move. I knew I had a job to do, to get the reaction of Brand and Brown out to readers, but I couldn’t move for a moment. What was next? What do I do now? My mind was racing at 100 mph.

I finally got back up and walked to the media room with another colleague of mine. He asked me with a dejected look on his face, “What now?” All I could do was shake my head and shrug my shoulders, silently. I didn’t say a word.

[lawrence-related id=27541,27533,27519]