Here's that link again.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27812008/nba-game-china-played-some-restrictionsInteresting how it starts with a blatant case of priming. "Return to normalcy," before it proceeds to say that the Chinese government cancelled Adam Silver's news conference and also banned all players from speaking to the media! Lol.
But the article does contain a couple of other interesting points. Fans were handed Chinese flags when entering the stadium.
Neither national anthem was played.
Lastly, the article goes into the LAL-BKN game itself. When it reached this point, I was reminded that yes, sports actually can be a way of bringing people together from wildly different backgrounds. While this aspect of sports may sometimes be exploited by different entities for their own purposes, it's true nevertheless. I would assume most of us have experienced this. You meet a stranger, maybe someone from a different country or culture or whatever, and discovering they're an NBA fan just bonds you in spite of everything. I think anyone who's ever played pick-up in a foreign country (or even "foreign culture" for those of us who've crossed between different socio-economic classes via the game) can also attest to this. In spite of everything going on right now, the game itself is still one of the greatest things on Earth.