Delayed action

 So, then: It's Kyrie 'n' Luka vs. Jaylen 'n' Jayson in the NBA Finals.

Also, if you prefer, the Dallas Mavericks vs. the Boston Celtics.

Also, a team with two guys playing out of their minds right now vs. the team that has been the winningest in the NBA all season.

Logic says you pick the latter. Not being remotely logical, I'm picking the former, who last night booted the Minnesota Timberwolves (who themselves had booted the reigning champion Denver Nuggets) in five games in the Western Conference finals.

Luka (Doncic, for those still require a last name) scored 36 points in last night's win, 20 of them in the first quarter. Kyrie (Irving) also scored 36. It was the fourth time in the playoffs so far both players have scored 30 or more points in the same game.

I don't know if the Celtics can put the brakes on that. I also don't know if the Celtics own dynamic duo, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, can match Luka and Kyrie bucket-for-bucket, although they probably won't have to because the Celtics also have Al Horford and Jrue Holiday and Derrick White, and the Mavs do not.

In any case, we'll have to wait six days for it all to begin, because the NBA and the teevees insist on being inflexible about this. The schedule says the Finals begin on June 6; therefore the Finals begin on June 6. It doesn't matter that both conference final series wrapped up a full week before that, or that the Celtics disposed of the Indiana Pacers on Memorial Day. The schedule is inviolable and timeless, like Stonehenge. It has withstood centuries of logic and rational thought (OK, so a week of logic and rational thought), and cannot be moved by any force known to man or nature.

Or, you know, something like that.

In any case, the Celtics will have been off nine days before they play again, the Mavericks six. By that time they may all be old enough to qualify for their pensions. Tatum and Brown may require walkers to get down the floor. Luka may have grown a long white beard and go by a new nickname: The Gandalf of Buckets.

"Now you're just being silly," you're saying now.

Yes, well. It's what I do.

I'll also wait, just like we'll all be compelled to do. At least nothing else is happening in the country now, besides the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Oh, and some guy got convicted yesterday on 34 counts of cooking the books to hide pay-offs to some porn star. I think I read something about that.