Wednesday’s playoff games, Milwaukee-Orlando, Houston-Oklahoma City and Los Angeles Lakers-Portland will not go as planned, as some of these teams have decided to boycott them in protest against racial injustice after the shots police officers on Jacob Blake, the NBA announced Wednesday, August 26.
“In light of the Milwaukee Bucks’ decision not to play their fifth game against the Orlando Magic, this game and the other two between the Houston Rockets and the Oklahoma City Thunder, as well as between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers have been postponed ”, indicated the authority, without specifying their reprogramming date.
“We are tired of these murders and injustice”
Wednesday afternoon in the Disney World “bubble” in Orlando, Florida, unlike their Magic counterparts, the Bucks players did not show up on the field to warm up before kick-off. They locked themselves in their locker room and decided not to play this 5e match that, if won, would qualify them for the Eastern Conference semi-finals.
The information that has filtered through some media on site was not formalized at first by the NBA. But The Athletic site already cited Bucks full-back George Hill as saying: “We are tired of these murders and the injustice. The team will not play this [mercredi] evening against Orlando after the shots on Jacob Blake in Kenosha. “
It is in this town of Wisconsin about fifty kilometers south of Milwaukee, that of the Bucks, that Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old African-American, was seriously injured during his arrest on Sunday and should probably be paralyzed for life . The terrible scene was filmed, we hear seven shots fired hitting this father in the back, who was trying to get into his car where, according to his lawyer, were three of his children, old boys. 3, 5 and 8 years old.
“We’re tired of it”
In the wake of this boycott, which the Magic players did not want to follow, according to several media, the players of the other two evening games decided to do the same, the NBA finally taking care of announcing their postponement. LeBron James, the Lakers superstar had, him, tweeted a few minutes earlier: “WE CALL FOR CHANGE. WE ARE FED UP “, announcing the sequel.
The NBA referees union in the wake said “In solidarity with the decision of our players to boycott the matches of this [mercredi] evening to protest against the unjustified and continuous murder of black men and women by the police. There are bigger issues in our country than basketball and we hope that will inspire change ”.
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