Celtics' loss forces Janet Jackson concert to be rescheduled in Atlanta
BOSTON -- How confident was everyone that the Celtics would close out the Hawks in Boston in Game 5 on Tuesday night? Well, the Hawks' own home arena didn't exactly have much faith that a Game 6 would be necessary.
Alas, the Hawks pulled off an incredible fourth-quarter comeback, and as a result, State Farm Arena had to do some creative scheduling to work around its double booking.
The arena announced after the Hawks' Game 5 win that Janet Jackson's concert was being moved from its originally scheduled date of Thursday to Friday.
That schedule shuffling figures to make for some hellacious traffic in downtown Atlanta, as Taylor Swift will be performing the first of her three concerts at Mercedes-Benz Stadium just next door. (That may make an onstage collaboration between the two artists difficult to pull off, if that was in the cards.)
Typically, when a team is in the playoffs, the home arena tries to avoid conflicts when scheduling concerts and other events. For example, the TD Garden -- which hosts both the Celtics and the Bruins -- has just one concert scheduled in May (Blink-182 on May 21) and two concerts scheduled in June (Bryan Adams on June 10, LL Cool J on June 25).
Yet with the Hawks needing to win a play-in game just to make the first round of the playoffs, there was a bit more uncertainty regarding the potential for the Hawks to need their building in late April. And even as the series with Boston entered Game 5, there was likely some belief in Atlanta that a rescheduling of Ms. Jackson's show would not be necessary.
Alas, the Celtics lost their lead, Trae Young hit a big shot, and now Janet Jackson fans in Georgia have to reschedule their babysitters and make new plans.
