The Cleveland Cavaliers had much more to deal with than their latest loss on Friday. With a nationwide ground stop on airline travel, the Cavs were left trying to figure out how to get home from Miami in order to host the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday night.
Cleveland lost an NBA Cup game to the Miami Heat at Kaseya Center 133-121 and were planning to fly home afterward. Instead, they were stuck in Florida with plans to depart Saturday morning, with a game against the Mavs scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at Rocket Arena.
When asked about the situation, Cavs star Donovan Mitchell called for the game against the Mavericks to be cancelled, calling a three-hour flight on the day of a back-to-back game “unprecedented.”
“Me, personally, yeah for sure,” Mitchell said.
The ground stop, which was reportedly caused by communication issues from planes to air traffic control, was lifted at 8:15 p.m. Eastern time on Friday. But the flight cancellations and residual delays left the system in chaos.
According to Cleveland.com, the Cavs were unable to find a new pilot to fly until Saturday morning. The Detroit Pistons were able to fly into Miami on Friday for their game against the Heat on Saturday night, which additionally complicated the overnight hotel situation for the Cavaliers.
The Mavericks last played on Thursday at the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Cavaliers finished a three-game road trip with their loss to the Heat, and Cleveland is scheduled to play another home game on Monday night against the Chicago Bulls, who also had to cancel a Friday night flight and leave Saturday morning for their game at Minnesota.
The Cavs were expected to arrive back in Cleveland around noon. The players would then either return home or, if there are any further delays, go directly to the arena to begin preparations to face the Mavericks.
It is certainly far from an ideal situation, and it will be worth watching what effect it has on the Cavs in this game and over the next few days.
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