Multiple NBA teams found ways to send a message on a day that saw violent protesters storm the United States Capitol.
Three games that took place on the evening of Wednesday, Jan. 6 featured the basketball players taking a knee in quiet protest.
Prior to the showdown between the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers, Stephen Curry and the rest of the players kneeled during the national anthem and held a moment of silence. Steph and several other Warriors teammates wore "Black Lives Matter" T-shirts while warming up.
Almost all of the players on the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat kneeled during the anthem ahead of their game as well.
The members of the Milwaukee Bucks and Detroit Pistons took a knee immediately after their tip-off. ESPN reported that the Bucks opted to kneel for a span of seven seconds to symbolize the seven times that Jacob Blake was shot by a police officer in August in Kenosha, Wisc. This followed prosecutors announcing on Jan. 5 that the officers involved in the shooting will not be charged.
The Celtics and Heat issued a joint statement saying that they opted to play the game "to try to bring joy into people's lives" but that they still wanted to use the platform to highlight ongoing injustice.
"2021 is a new year, but some things have not changed," the statement read. "We play tonight's game with a heavy heart after yesterday's decision in Kenosha, and knowing that protesters in our nation's capital are treated differently by political leaders depending on what side of certain issues they are on. The drastic difference between the way protesters this past spring and summer were treated and the encouragement given to today's protesters who acted illegally just shows how much more work we have to do."
Clippers superstar Paul George said after his game that he would have been in favor of the NBA canceling all of Wednesday's matchups, had that been an option.
"It's two different worlds that we live in, and that was clear as day," Paul said, according to NBC Sports. "I would have been all for the league shutting down today to kind of just bring light to what's really going on in the world."