Utah Jazz’s Donovan Mitchell, right, goes up for a shot against Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic during the second half of an NBA basketball first round playoff game, Monday, Aug. 17, 2020, in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool)
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — The Milwaukee Bucks were the first team that refused to take the floor in these NBA playoffs, and they’ll be in the first game when play resumes Saturday.
The league released the weekend schedule and essentially kept all the games that were postponed together with tripleheaders set for Saturday and Sunday.
On Saturday: Milwaukee takes on Orlando at 3:30 p.m., followed by Oklahoma City against Houston at 6:30 p.m. and the Los Angeles Lakers meeting Portland at 9 p.m. All of those series are playing Game 5s; the Bucks and Lakers lead their series 3-1, and the Thunder-Rockets series is knotted at 2-2.
For Sunday: Boston faces Toronto at 1 p.m., the Los Angeles Clippers play Dallas at 3:30 p.m. and Denver meets Utah at 3:30. The Celtics-Toronto game is Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals; the other two games are Game 6s in the Western Conference first round, with the Clippers and Jazz holding 3-2 series leads.
Saturday’s matchups were to have been played Wednesday, and Sunday’s matchups were slated to occur Thursday. The NBA playoffs stopped for three days after the Bucks, in response to the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin refused to take the floor for their game on Wednesday afternoon.
That set off a wave of activity, including talk that the season could end. Players, coaches and team owners met — sometimes separately, some together — in recent days before announcing plans to continue the season.
Miami, which ousted Indiana this past Monday, will have at least a week off between games. The Heat will meet the winner of the Bucks-Magic series; if Milwaukee wins Saturday, it would seem likely that Game 1 of a Heat-Bucks matchup would be Monday.