It's a lot to ask...

..but when are we going to be wowed like this again? I don't need two amazing shots but I'd like one game-winner. Granted, I haven't watched every game this post-season. But, you know what? Not much point in the second round given all those home-court wins. For instance: why did the Cavs/Celts even get to game 7? (For that matter, how did the Hawks push it that far?) And, when it gets down to it, I only watched the last quarter -- and even that only had one amazing play:

But even that, with all that excitement, it was -- again -- another instance of LeBron-as-team: the Cavs are, for the most part, past their prime (which was never that good to begin with; except the weird, anomalic career/talent/work ethic of Ben Wallace and the hindered-by-being-white-and-enormous Big Z; I'm looking at you, Joe Smith) or just plain boring and one-note (Devin Brown? Sasha Pavlovic? "Boobie"? Damon "asshole" Jones?), with the sole exception being Delonte and his too-crazy-to-suck style. Or is it a routine?

Carlton thinks, whatever it is, it's gross; I think it's kind of great.
Some of my displeasure with this round has been the home-team-wins mentality, but I'd be lying if it wasn't also simply a lack of in-game drama, no matter the arena. And of course, my bias would have loved to have seen the W-men take it to the Lakers for at least one win in the first round. There wasn't really a chance of Baron and Monta and Jax repeating their wild and crazy ways this year (these Lakers are led by Kobe, not Dirk, and have more all-around talent than last year's Mavs), but at least we might have seen something like this dagger-shot, which I got to see live and in person,

or, another favorite highlight from The Best Regular Season Ever (tm):

I haven't seen amazing happen like that in the playoffs yet. But we can hope that a Kobe-Paul or Kobe-Manu conference finals -- hey, who am I kidding? it's gotta be Kobe-Paul -- will give us some heroics. I mean, Kobe-Deron has given us the greatest game of this playoffs so far --

and the best shot I've seen in the playoffs so far --

-- I mean, right? And, if Kobe keeps playing, and maybe even wins the Finals this year, his legend will be cemented and people can stop talking about that and move on to how hilarious his self-parody has become, or will become, what with all that tree-shaking and Aston Martin-jumping and rape-beating (uh, beating a rape rap?) and back-spasming and no-Shaqing and all that adds to his already large ego. Cuz, if you're not laughing at (and, to a lesser extent, with) the man, you're probably hating the man, which means you're probably unhappy -- and you don't need to be unhappy because this man is supremely talented, lucky and a beauty to watch on the court. He makes magic happen in a special way. I just hope he makes some magic happen in the next two rounds. Should be easy when flanked by Lamar and Pau -- when Lamar and Pau are playing like they've been playing. I mean, Odom was the real reason Game 4 was so awesome. --RWK

PS -- Yes, I was inspired by BS