Pair of PBA matches postponed over safety concerns

THE young Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) season hit its first speed bump after the league was forced to postpone a pair of matches set for Wednesday over safety concerns.

In an announcement made on Tuesday, the PBA said the Philippine Cup game of the TNT Tropang Giga against the Magnolia Hotshots Pambansang Manok set to tip off at 6 p.m. is postponed after four TNT players returned tests that were either positive or needed to be confirmed for COVID-19 under government-approved league protocols.

The PBA did not reveal the names of the players, but said they are now isolated and will be retested. The rest of the team who had negative test results are also in isolation and will be tested again as well.

The game between the Terrafirma Dyip and Alaska Aces was also postponed because the Dyip played TNT in their previous game.

And as a precautionary measure, Terrafirma players, who all yielded negative results, are in isolation, too, and will be up for retesting in accordance with existing protocols.

The postponed matches will be rescheduled to a later date.

In light of the development, the PBA offering for Wednesday will now see the Phoenix Super LPG Fuel Masters (0-1) taking on the Northport Batang Pier (0-1) at 3 p.m. and Magnolia (1-0) now facing Alaska (1-0) at 6 p.m.

Magnolia is coming off its 80-73 conquest of the Phoenix on Saturday.

New acquisition Calvin Abueva was impressive in his Hotshots debut, chalking up a double-double of 26 points and 10 boards. Paul Lee scored 21 points in the hard-earned victory.

Alaska, meanwhile, was an opening-day winner on July 16, beating the Blackwater Bossing, 103-77.

Mike Digregorio came off the bench to lead the Aces in the win with 20 points. He was backstopped by Yousef Taha with 16 points and seven rebounds.

Northport, for its part, lost to the Meralco Bolts, 85-63, in its first game.

The PBA finally got its long-delayed Season 46 going last week after getting the nod from the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) to proceed with the understanding that it would follow all the guidelines in the joint administrative order on the resumption of sports activities.

The matches are done in a closed-circuit setup where participants’ movements are confined to home-venue-home. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo