Cheering on the Celtics, Tom Brady is simultaneously a good conflict for Boston fans.

DALLAS – Boston sports fans will be glued to what happens deep in the heart of Texas on Wednesday night when the Celtics play the Dallas Mavericks in Game 3 of the NBA Finals. But a big party will also be held in the heart of Foxboro, Massachusetts, when Tom Brady is inducted into the New England Patriots Hall of Fame during what promises to be a dazzling, star-studded event at Gillette Stadium.

Unfortunately, that is one of the dangers of long-term planning. The Patriots planned a beautiful June wedding for Brady and his Hall of Famer, but then the Celtics reached the finals and started raining shots on the overwhelmed Mavericks.

The Patriots could have considered scheduling their Brady party earlier or later in the year. After all, with Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens acquiring Kristaps Porziņģis and Jrue Holiday during the offseason and pairing them with resident performers Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, Boston emerged as a good bet to play the final this spring. And here it is.

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But instead of viewing the NBA Finals and the Patriots’ Hall of Fame induction ceremony as contradictory events, Boston’s savvy sports fan has the luxury of viewing them as two championship ships passing in the night. One of them commemorates a glorious past; the other represents a bright and expected future.

Boston’s big four professional sports franchises have combined to win 12 championships this century. Six of those championships have been awarded to the Patriots, in large part thanks to Brady’s brilliant quarterbacking and Bill Belichick’s masterful coaching. The Red Sox have papered the championship home with four World Series titles. The 2007-08 Celtics, led by a new trio of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, defeated the Los Angeles Lakers in the Finals. In 2011, Tim Thomas’ otherworldly goaltending propelled the Bruins to their first Stanley Cup victory since 1972, when Bobby Orr and the Big, Bad Bruins owned Boston.

Imagine: four teams combined to win 12 championships in two decades. Every year or two, Boston’s ubiquitous duck boats would be appropriated for the ultimate “rolling rally” through Back Bay. Boston sports stars appeared on each other at big games. Brady at Fenway. David Ortiz in the Garden. Patrice Bergeron at Gillette. They were also frequent travelers on late-night sets, exchanging banter with Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon and the rest.

And it looked like there were plans to continue winning for a third decade. During a period from October 2018 to June 2019, the Red Sox won another World Series, the Patriots won another Super Bowl and the Bruins reached Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final before losing to the St. Louis Blues .

But age and defects were hiding in plain sight. The Sox, Patriots and Bruins were losing their touch, although few cared to acknowledge it. The Red Sox made a disastrous decision by trading star outfielder Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers during spring training in 2020 and have only made one postseason appearance since. The Bruins haven’t gotten past the second round since 2019. The Patriots? Their 13-3 victory over the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LIII on February 3, 2019 was their last championship (in fact, last playoff victory) of the Brady era. He moved on to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and won another Super Bowl; The Brady-less Patriots have largely moved in the other direction.

If we look at all four teams and borrow from vaudeville, the act was becoming stale. I needed new faces. The rebuilt Celtics enter. They’ve long had Tatum and Brown as top-tier co-stars, but many promising postseason runs failed because the Celtics didn’t have a equipment. Stevens understood it and that’s why Porziņģis and Holiday are now teammates with Tatum and Brown.

The Celtics have a 2-0 lead over the Mavericks in the finals. A win in Game 3 on Wednesday night would put them on the verge of winning a championship. There’s that, and there’s Tom Brady’s Patriots Hall of Fame ceremony.

Brady’s event will be fun, especially with Massachusetts-raised comedian and Patriots fan Bill Burr among the headliners. It is reasonable to assume that he is retired. NFL Longtime Patriots quarterback and opponent Peyton Manning will provide additional comedy, not unlike when Magic Johnson appeared on Larry Bird Night in 1993 at the old Boston Garden and opened his Lakers warm-up jacket to reveal a Celtics jersey.

Brady’s event will be nostalgic and more than 100 former Patriots are expected to attend. And it will be emotional, with Belichick making his first appearance at Gillette Stadium since he was fired as head coach and then crushed in the Apple TV Plus miniseries “The Dynasty.” (Or, as I like to call him, “Kill Bill”).

Yes, the Brady event will take place against Game 3 of the NBA Finals. Again: it’s not a bad thing. And it’s nowhere near the worst long-range planning snag in Boston sports history. Consider the plight of poor Warren Spahn, the star pitcher of the defunct Boston Braves. Spahn set up a restaurant in front of Braves Field that was expected to have a grand opening the same day as the Braves’ first home game in 1953, the only problem was that the team moved to Milwaukee during spring training.

Boston lost its National League baseball team and the Warren Spahn Diner became a Hayes-Bickford diner. Later, a silencer shop appeared on the site.

That that was wrong. Wednesday night will be fine. Brady will be at Gillette Stadium to remind Boston sports fans of the good times, and Tatum, Brown, Porziņģis, Holiday and company will be at the American Airlines Center in Dallas to remind them that the good times aren’t over yet.

(Jayson Tatum Photo: Adam Glanzman/Getty Images)