The NBA league office is searching for ways to make sure a Boston Celtics-Los Angeles Lakers Finals takes place this year. What seemed like almost absolute certainty entering the post-season is now in jeopardy after the Utah Jazz tied up their series on Sunday and Boston has struggled on the road against both Atlanta and Cleveland. "At this point nothing is certain," said David Stern. "What we do know for sure is that no one wants to see Utah or Cleveland battle it out for a championship. I personally would rather watch some nonsense like hockey over that."

"So, what we're going to do is just create an alternative championship, just in case one of these teams should lose. College football does it with the BCS sometimes, they have split championships. So we feel we should be able to do it here. We're going to just add in a second championship that already has Boston and LA scheduled in it. Then they can play the series everyone wants to see. Kobe against KG, Paul Pierce against...whoever else is on Kobe's team. Whoever gets to the other final out of this riffraff that is left can go at each other in a single game, no sense in making people watch more than one game of that. We can't afford to put them in their home courts for that though, but there are a few high school gyms that have offered themselves up for whoever makes it. We don't know if it will be on TV yet, but cable channels Versus and TV Land have both agreed to show the game, as long as it can be aired after 1:00 AM."