NBA Won’t Make Friends in East With West Games

“I am so glad ‘Friends’ is off the air now,” Charles Barkley was saying the other night on TNT. “One of the worst sitcoms ever.”

It was hard for Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson to know where to go with that, so Barkley just kept on talking.

“Hey, you know what?” Barkley said. “I was really sad ‘Frasier’ ended. I loved ‘Frasier.’ ”

Johnson: “We’re happy to give you this outlet here ... “

Barkley: “You didn’t like ‘Frasier?’ ”

Johnson: “Oh, I loved ‘Frasier.’ But not tonight.”

The TNT NBA crew runs a loose ship, but even by those let-it-fly-by-night standards, this bit raised a very serious question.

What on Earth was going on?

a) They were killing time in between NBA playoff games.

b) They were killing time waiting for another very late NBA playoff game tipoff.

c) They were bored because the referee stopped the Anthony Peeler-Kevin Garnett bout too early.

d) They were actually watching highlights of the Lakers’ Game 6 victory over San Antonio on Saturday night.

Although a), b) and c) are all reasonable and plausible possibilities, d) was the truth. A courtside shot of Matthew Perry sent Barkley off on his “Sitcoms I Have Loved And Loathed” rant, prompting Johnson to throw out a restraining net -- come back, Chuck, come back -- before Smith finally was able to salvage the proceedings with a helpful reminder, “Getting back to the game ... “

Oh, right. The games. They were easy to forget in the first round, when anything seemed possible -- sailing around the world, getting your graduate degree -- in between NBA playoff games. In the second round, there have been more games in less time, leading to -- who’d have imagined? -- better games.

With teams no longer hopelessly out of sync and rhythm, all four quarterfinal series were tied at 2-2 after four games.

The Minnesota-Sacramento series, buoyed by a mind-blowing overtime finish in Game 3, will go seven games. The Detroit-New Jersey series, which spiked with three overtimes in Game 5, will go seven games. The Lakers and Spurs played the greatest single second in NBA history in Game 5 -- Tim Duncan, Derek Fisher, you could have caught it again Monday on “ESPN Classic.”

Even the Indiana-Miami series will go at least six games, which proves anything can happen in these NBA playoffs, except, of course, starting games in Los Angeles and Sacramento early enough so Eastern fans can actually watch these great finishes, instead of sleeping through them.

ABC’s Michele Tafoya raised the issue with NBA Commissioner David Stern in an interview during last Thursday’s Game 5 between the Lakers and the Spurs.

The commissioner, feeling good about all the 2-2 series, gave Tafoya a self-satisfied grin and a reply to match.

“We’re asking those games to start at 7:30 local time,” Stern said. “It wouldn’t be fair to fans in [West Coast] cities to disrupt them by playing games at 5:30. So get used to it.”

Forget “Get Excited.” Here is the slogan the NBA ought to tote through the remainder of its takes-too-long, starts-too-late postseason: “So Get Used To It.”

After Tafoya wrapped up the interview, Al Michaels mused that the solution for fans wanting to watch all the games at a reasonable hour was to “move to Hawaii. That way, all the games are over by, like, 9 o’clock.”

Doc Rivers said that he had been “up at 2 o’clock in the morning, watching basketball games. But that’s a good thing. Because I want to watch the games, and they’re good games.” Pause. “I guess that’s a good thing.”

Or maybe not. Despite the improved play and heightened drama in the second round, ABC’s playoff ratings remain behind last season’s. Through five playoff telecasts, ABC is averaging a 4.7 rating with an 11 share -- down 10% from 5.2/12 after five playoff games in 2003.

Right now, we have professional sports and television executives regularly banging their heads on meeting-room tables, wracking their brains on how to bring younger viewers into the audience. The result, mostly, has been a lot of headaches and horrible ideas that have to be recalled as soon as they’re run up the flagpole.

Spider-Man ads on the bases in major league ballparks?

A screaming cartoon baseball on Fox with all the personality warmth of Stephen A. Smith?

Here’s a wild idea: Why not start the games early enough for East Coast kids to watch them? If not all the weeknight games, how about on weekends? Did Saturday’s Laker-Spur series clincher really need to start at 7:30 p.m. local time?

Even the grown-ups could use a break in a schedule. In the TNT studio, Barkley and Smith are showing signs of fatigue. Saturday night, Barkley was so loopy, he started critiquing sitcoms. Sunday night, he was so tired that when he took his turn at “the rack,” the studio jump-shot contest, he could make only one basket in 24 seconds.

Earlier Sunday, Smith broke down tape of the Peeler-Garnett skirmish and posed the theory that Peeler’s first angry elbow was intended for Minnesota’s Wally Szczerbiak, not Garnett.

“That elbow was not intended [for Garnett],” Smith said as a replay of the incident rolled. “Wally Szczerbiak sets the screen and hits [Peeler]. All of a sudden, Kevin Garnett switches places with Wally. That elbow -- [Peeler] thinks that’s Wally Szczerbiak.... The elbow was intended for Wally Szczerbiak, not his boy, Kevin Garnett. That’s why the altercation happened.”

Barkley, not buying it: “Were you on the O.J. jury?”

Minnesota and Sacramento play Game 7 on Wednesday night, with the winner opening the Western Conference finals against the Lakers on Friday. For the Lakers, there’s a lot of time to kill before then.

So, what did everybody think about Tony’s weird dream on Sunday’s “The Sopranos”?