To Be Or Not To Be (Asleep For Each First Round Playoff Series)

Ranking all eight NBA first round playoff series by watchability

For the past few years (see the last six), the Eastern Conference Playoffs have largely been an obligatory snooze fest, with LeBron James’s team clearly destined to make the NBA Finals, and no more than one Eastern Conference foe decent enough to take a series to six or seven games.

But at times this year, the Celtics, Raptors, and Wizards have looked like legitimate teams capable of competing with anyone. This means the second round in the East promises to be more exciting that usual, but given that half of the seeds weren’t decided until the last night of the regular season, each team in the East has its own compelling narrative.

This is to say nothing of the Western Conference, which fields NBA MVP frontrunners and disgruntled superstars on expiring contracts going head-to-head.

You don’t want want to be trapped on a desert island the next two weeks, but if that’s where you find yourself and a satellite dish with NBA stations – here are the series’ to watch, in three categories of watchability.