DO COVID TITLES COUNT?

If a team wins Game 7 and no one is around to cheer and high five, is it still the champ?

- JORDAN BURCHETTE

DID YOU HEAR the one that goes: What do the Dodgers and Lakers have in common with Joe Biden? They probably wouldn’t have won without COVID-19, either.

The NBA shut down last March heralded the full-court disruption of many, many pleasures taken for granted in American life. But while barbershops were shuttered and concert halls converted to pandemic hospitals, the NBA and its co-leagues dutifully shouted “Game back on!” and bravely forged on in their essential role as bellwethers of the collective morale.