Robert Williams is a strong man. One of the baskets at Denver’s Ball Arena learned that the hard way on Sunday, as a Time Lord dunk resulted in a busted rim and a nearly 40-minute delay to fix it during the fourth quarter of the Celtics’ game against the Nuggets.
The dunk came with 8:06 left in the game. It wasn’t immediately clear that the rim had been bent, as play didn’t stop until the next timeout. But once it did, the officials called for the arena crew to take a look. That’s when the repairs began… and then continued, and continued, and continued.
The workers could not get the rim to stay level and eventually had to take it off the backboard all together to fix it for good. Play finally resumed, but Celtics star Jaylen Brown, who was critical of how the situation was handled, said he’s not convinced the rim was even back to normal after all that.
“There was no communication,” Brown said. “They spent all that time trying to fix it, but when we came back, it still looked like it wasn't even level, in my opinion. So we just wasted all that time. That has an effect on the game. That's how injuries and stuff happen. Luckily, that didn't [happen], but that wasn't good. That whole process was handled poorly, in my opinion.”
Jayson Tatum called the whole situation “weird.”
“It was just weird,” he said. “I don’t exactly how long we waited, but nobody probably expected it to be that long.”
The Celtics were down 110-97 at the time of delay and went on to lose 123-111. Two-time MVP Nikola Jokic had 30 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists for the Nuggets, while Brown led the Celtics with 30 points and eight rebounds.