Janet Jackson will have to wait awhile

The Atlanta Hawks Game 5 escapade in Boston has forced the delay of a Janet Jackson concert that was supposed to take place at State Farm Arena on Thursday night.

Scheduling concert dates during the NBA Playoffs is always risky, but a United States summer tour cannot solely be completed from June-August. It was announced in December 2022 that the Together Again Tour with Janet Jackson and special guest Ludacris would launch in April 2023 with a run in the southeast, knowing that is during the first round.

If the Boston Celtics had taken care of business on Tuesday night, the final Atlanta date would have gone off without a hitch. The C’s were up 12 points with just under five and a half minutes remaining in the game. Then Trae Young went splash waterfalls, scoring 14 of his 16 fourth-points in the final 3:30 of the game. That included a 30-foot 3-pointer with 1.8 seconds remaining to give the Hawks a 119-117 victory.

Of course the NBA has first dibs on State Farm Arena, even if a big concert was booked to make a great deal of money as opposed to having a dark night in April. As a result, Chris Bridges and Ms. Jackson were forced to move the second of their Atlanta shows to Friday night according to Turner Sports’ Chris Haynes.

Until the last few minutes of Game 5, in no way would a Hawks playoff game sound like a better evening out than a Janet concert. Hell, even with the raised stakes of the Hawks’ opportunity to force a deciding Game 7 I’d rather go to a Janet concert.

Update: Trae Young wants Janet Jackson at Game 6.

Game 6 has a real possibility of being a dud. The Celtics are clearly the better team and should be seething, especially Jayson Tatum who put up one of his sub-40 percent field-goal percentage effort. He will want vengeance, and Young may have too much confidence after that game-winning 30-footer. Young is known to kill a run with a logo three, and he is likely to go deep too many times in Game 6.

A Janet and Ludacris concert though, every time that event is going to be a thrill. Ludacris has at least a decade’s worth of car bangers whether your ride in the 2000s had a diamond in the back or not. And Janet, Google her HBO Velvet Rope Tour show to see what that entails. For those that would say that was 26 years ago, she’s still got it.

You folks in Metro Atlanta who hired babysitters and shined up your Rhythm Nation caps, you all are going to have to find a way to push everyone’s schedule back a day. Ludacris, Janet, and the arena, none of them can control the NBA Playoffs.