Bulls-Heat postponed due to condensation on the court

Center Bam Adebayo gestured toward the locker room Thursday night at the United Center as his Heat teammates trudged along in front of him.

It was the physical highlight of the evening.

The Heat-Bulls game, scheduled to start at 7 p.m., was delayed for nearly two hours because of condensation on the court before ultimately being postponed — only the second time such an incident has happened in the NBA. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra had a strained smile as he walked past fans, clearly peeved his team wouldn’t play.

The condensation was believed to be caused by warm air in the arena interacting with the ice sheet below the court. The Blackhawks had played in the UC the night before.

A makeup date has not been scheduled.

The Bulls had returned from Detroit after a loss to the Pistons on Wednesday night to play the second half of a back-to-back that didn’t happen. Guard Tre Jones said he’d never seen anything like it, noting the court was slippery during pregame warmups, even without a huge number of people in the arena yet.

“I think it was just one of those things that [they] just kept trying but couldn’t get under control,” Jones said. “They were just telling us they’re gonna keep waiting. It was like 15-minute segments, and so every 15 minutes would go by, and they’re just like, ‘Trying to continue to work on it,’ to make sure we had a safe playing field.”

Before the postponement, Spoelstra wasn’t optimistic the game would take place.

“We always want to try to go,” he said. “The players were complaining about [the condensation] on both sides. [The Heat] staff, we all went out there and pretty much immediately we felt that it wasn’t playable. We have that in our practice facility. When there’s condensation, it takes about 15 minutes for it to change.”

The only other such postponement was in March 2017 for a game between the Trail Blazers and the host Timberwolves at the Target Center. Temperatures in Minneapolis that day had been in the mid-60s. Around the time of the postponement Thursday, it was 57 degrees outside the United Center.

When the Blazers-Timberwolves game was postponed, they had to have their makeup game soon afterward because of playoff implications. But the Heat’s and Bulls’ schedules don’t line up to play the game over the next week. The game can’t be played Friday because the Blackhawks host the Capitals. The Heat have games Saturday and Sunday and must be off on Monday.

Players started playing shooting games on the court after what was expected to be a short delay. After 30 minutes, both teams went to the locker room. Eventually they jointly decided to postpone.

“There was no question that it was not playable,” Spoelstra said. “That’s what was disappointing. As soon as you walked out there, you knew you couldn’t play.”

Said Jones: “We were just trying to stay ready for when we thought the game would be started. “We were just kind of waiting around and thinking that it would be ready, but it just wasn’t able to get to a place where we were able to feel comfortable playing.”