MEMPHIS — The name of the game in the NBA is adjustments.
It’s usually about adjusting to other teams. But for the Nets — and a host of others around the league over the past two days — it was adjusting their travel.
The Nets — who were en route to face the Grizzlies — got thrown into travel chaos Friday night and Saturday morning, just like the rest of the country. The Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to ground every flight nationwide for hours Friday left travelers scrambling, and the Nets were among them.
“Yeah, I mean, obviously it was something that we couldn’t control,” Nets coach Jordi Fernández said. “And to be honest with you, it was not that bad. We had good rest and got here [Saturday] morning and did our walkthrough, and probably [would have] gone to the gym, but we were not able to. And I think we feel good and ready to go.”
The ground stop lasted over four hours before the FAA finally let airplanes take off Friday night. The Nets were one of five NBA teams that had been slated to fly that day for games Saturday.
Brooklyn had been coming off a dominant 142-111 victory over the Pelicans on Wednesday night at Smoothie King Arena. They had stayed in New Orleans and practiced in the city Friday morning before heading to the airport to charter to Memphis.
The Nets had just boarded their team plane in New Orleans, but had their flight halted in place. They eventually had to deboard the plane, scramble and find a hotel and stay overnight in New Orleans.
Eventually, the Nets flew out at about 9 a.m. Saturday and arrived around 11 a.m., though the times blurred to Fernández.
“Every day feels the same day and I just know the team that I play against in the city that I’m in,” Fernández laughed. “I don’t know about time, sorry.”
The Nets had initially planned to have a morning shootaround in Memphis. But arriving that morning instead of the afternoon prior, their plans got changed.
They faced the Grizzlies later that night at FedExForum.
“Yeah, I mean, some of the guys we would have done some sort of shooting in the morning. It’s been the routine that they’ve had so far, whether it’s in a team setting or shooting times and walk-through and stuff like that. But we were not able to do it because of the time that we got here,” Fernández said. “So, like I said, it’s not ideal. We got here, everybody’s safe. It’s the most important thing.”
Nets play-by-play voice Chris Carrino and color analyst Tim Capstraw — Brooklyn’s radio announcers for WFAN — were flying commercial and also got caught by the travel chaos. With direct transit from New Orleans to Memphis already all but impossible, the duo had flown to Houston and planned to catch a connecting flight but got stranded in Texas. They stayed in the airport and flew into Memphis on a 7:20 a.m. flight.
Ironically, the Grizzlies had also been in New Orleans, and beat the Pelicans on Friday night.
Memphis had to fly home Saturday morning as well.
“Before the New Orleans game you could see a lot of chatter courtside and in the locker room about what was going to happen,” Grizzlies coach Tuomas Iisalo said.
“We departed at maybe 11:30 when our original time was about 10 o’clock … instead of doing a morning shootaround on back-to-backs, a lot of times what teams do is a jog through here at the arena, so you don’t come back twice.”
The ground stop played havoc with travel.
The Pistons had already flown to Miami, with the Bulls, Cavaliers and Grizzlies all having played Friday night and been expected to fly afterward, according to ESPN.
Friday saw a total of 9,132 cancellations and 7,030 delays. Saturday saw thousands more, with the numbers still growing.
Officials cited “extraordinary circumstances” caused by communications issues at regional air traffic control centers for the stoppage.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pointed to “old switches, old routers.”
The Nets had a jumbo lineup again Saturday, but not their leading scorer.
Michael Porter Jr. was out Saturday after being a late scratch due to personal reasons. But the backcourt was healthy, with Nolan Traore and Mikel Brown Jr. both returning after having missed the win in New Orleans.
The Nets went with Egor Dëmin, Danny Wolf, Noah Clowney, Julius Randle and Day’Ron Sharpe, every starter at least 6-foot-9 as they had been against the Pelicans. Those were the first times any team has done that since the Lakers on April 21, 1990.
