There’s been a seismic upset (Orlando over Boston), an epic series (Boston over Chicago), and the emergence of potential stars (Rajon Rondo, Derrick Rose). What we haven’t had: Close games. In the entire first round, of the 45 games, only 16 were “close” (read: decided by single digits). Nine of those 16 came from the Boston-Chicago series and Orlando-Philly series. The six other series: crap.

The second round was equally terrible – other than Kobe vs. Artest, the Rockets-Lakers series was dreadfully boring – only one of the seven games was close. If Orlando and Boston hadn’t played four “close” games, the second round would have been a disaster that was highlighted by altercations (aforementioned Artest-Kobe, and the Nuggets-Mavs, highlighted by Kenyon Martin vs. Mark Cuban).

We remain optimistic for the conference finals – which begin tomorrow in LA – but were we so spoiled by Chicago-Boston that if a game’s not close heading into the fourth quarter, we’re going to poke around the dial?

Even though Charles Barkley took the Magic over the Cavs, we like Cleveland in six. And as much as we’d like to take the Nuggets in an upset (and as bad as the Lakers looked), we’ll take LA in seven.