Just when you thought you were safe from hockey talk, here comes the basketball talk. The goddamned Lakers have made it to the finals again, and I am hoping against hope that they will lose. The fact that they are trailing 2-0 in the finals makes me very happy.

As a rule, I don’t give a rat’s ass about basketball. Oh, I did for about five minutes in the early ’80s when I lived in Greater Philadelphia and the Sixers were good, but that was mostly just to be sociable. I can watch football, but basketball and baseball bore me to tears. And I especially dislike basketball, in part because basketball fans tend to be sort of a lower life form.

If the Ducks or Angels win the title, there are noisy beer-soaked celebrations, but there aren’t fucking riots, okay? Conversely, when the Lakers win, people start running through the streets vandalizing cars. What this has to do with celebration, I do not know, but I wince every time the Lakers look poised to win the NBA title.

A few years back (I want to say Sam was a baby), the Lakers won the title and a bunch of people in the condo complex a block away from where we live went completely apeshit. There was much drinking and yelling, in large part done outdoors, and as the piece de resistance they set fire to an abandoned mattress someone had dumped on the curbside. I know this because I was out walking the dog, hurrying past and hoping I wouldn’t be pelted by flying beer bottles. Of course, it all ended in tears, with police cars and police helicopters, for God’s sake. When the Lakers win, the assholes just come crawling out of the woodwork.

I don’t have any special affection for Boston, except insofar as it’s not located in California (in my book, a plus for any city). Anyway: go Celtics. Please, please spare us another Lakers celebration.