NBA: The Warriors, the first team to play behind closed doors | NBA 2019

The San Francisco team will play their duel Thursday against the Nets in public and not play again at home until the 25th.

The Golden State Warriors will be the first NBA team to play behind closed doors as a precaution for the coronavirus outbreak. The San Francisco Department of Public Health has banned concentrations of more than 1,000 people in the city. The first game affected will be this Thursday against the Brooklyn Nets.

California is, along with Washington State and New York, one of the regions most affected by the coronavirus. This week the county of Santa Clara, just 80 kilometers away, had already banned these concentrations. San Francisco was next. The city's Department of Public Health had already made the recommendation last Friday and is now mandated, according to Mayor London Breed.

The NBA already asked this weekend the 30 franchises to prepare plans to play games behind closed doors, limiting attendance to essential personnel. Nothing reflects the change of scenery of the last days better than the posture of LeBron James. After refusing to play without an audience, the Lakers forward corrected: “It would be disappointing, but we will do what the experts say.”

All possibilities

The Warriors, owners of the Chase Center, have suspended all scheduled events in the pavilion until March 21. After the game against Brooklyn, the team does not return home until the 25th, but the franchise has left in the air the possibility of extending this measure.

The NBA Governing Board will meet by phone this Wednesday and plans to do so twice more on Thursday. On the table, according to ESPN, all the possibilities: from playing behind closed doors, as recommended by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and Allergies, to suspending games, going through an improbable solution -and dangerous-, take the parties to cities where the crisis is still controlled.