We don’t hope for much out of the first round. Every so often, we’re treated to some impeccably played, competitive ball—Spurs-Clips in 2015, Spurs-Mavs in 2014, Celtics-Bulls in 2009—but for the most part, it’s higher seeds thrashing lower ones and longer series between middling teams who are likely to get walloped in the conference semis. It’s not a bad time since the stakes are high and the dregs of each conference have been trimmed away, but first round games aren’t often truly gripping because the closest series tend to involve the pretty good or the mediocre rather than the great. And because not a single soul with two eyes and taste can get worked up over the prospect of bonus Atlanta Hawks basketball.

It follows that if we aren’t jazzed about the first round, we wouldn’t care much about who barely squeaks into the playoffs, but there’s not much else to think about in early April, when the league is firmly stratified and the best teams are trying to strike a balance between keeping sharp and resting players they’re going to need in the postseason. There are also meaningful differences among various types of seven and eight seeds. A young team is preferable to an aging one. A new-look squad is more intriguing than one we’ve seen several times before. Stars are always a plus. We’re working with thin soup, here. Anything that makes it taste more like a meal is welcome.

Last year, the Pistons were swept by the Cavaliers in the opening round, but it was an interesting series, as far as sweeps go. Two of the games were decided by five points or less. Stanley Johnson talked some smack about LeBron. The Cavs were forced to take the Pistons seriously in order to progress. And perhaps most crucially, Detroit’s worthy effort suggested that they might be on the rise. (Cue Ron Howard: they really weren’t.) It was a drubbing to feel good about, if such a thing exists.

Contrast that with the Warriors-Rockets first-rounder, in which the Rockets stole one game but couldn’t be asked to show up to any of the others. They were playing for an interim coach. Dwight Howard was on his way out, his relationship with a somnambulant James Harden irreparably frayed. It was the worst thing a playoff series can be in that it felt more like an obligation than a spectacle. Everyone involved wanted a sweep. 

This season, the Western Conference postseason hunt is shaping up optimally. The Thunder and Grizz are tussling over the six seed, which means the Spurs will have to deal either with Russell Westbrook’s incandescent apoplexy or Memphis’s unkillable peskiness. The Grizz are the exception that proves the rule with regard to low-seeded familiar faces due simply to the improbability of what they do. This team should have fallen off three years ago and they’ve never had a lick of outside shooting and yet they persist like a hunk of gravel you can’t shake from your shoe. The Thunder are so brutal they verge on joylessness, but there’s a chance Russ goes full “Death of a Racehorse” after putting up 53 and 22 in an overtime loss, so that’s worth tuning in for.

The eight seed is looking increasingly like it belongs to the Blazers, and Playoff Dame Lillard swerves dangerously and fascinatingly between doing too much and doing more than you ever thought he could. Plus Jusuf Nurkić might re-injure Kevin Durant’s knee just by sneering at him. If the Blazers tail off suddenly, it wouldn’t be a tragedy if the Nuggets snuck in. Their roster is composed almost entirely of youngish League Pass favorites. Maybe it’s time the casual NBA fan learned what Gary Harris looks like.

The East is a problem, isn’t it? The Bulls, Heat, Pacers, Hornets, and Pistons are all within three games of each other and fighting for two playoff spots. Out of that pack, the Heat are the most likable mostly for the fact that they have no business being any good and a little bit because it’s nice to say the words people don’t talk about Goran Dragić enough and actually mean it for the first time in a few years. And if they meet the Cavaliers in the first round and he’s healthy, Dion Waiters is going to go 4-for-14 in the first quarter of the first game, get T’d up for taunting Kyrie Irving, and take postgame questions wearing a crown made out of K’nex.

Beyond that, there’s not a lot to enjoy. The Bulls are the Pacers, but more dysfunctional. The Pacers are the Hornets, but with a better star. The Hornets are the Bulls, but well-coached. The Pistons are like when a tree comes down with some kind of fungal virus and won’t sprout leaves anymore. The Bulls have been playing well for over a month now, and it would be a cruel brand of salvation if they do just enough to help Gar Forman, John Paxson, and Fred Hoiberg keep their jobs, setting themselves up for another miserable year of crises and Jimmy Butler trade rumors. They’re the most baroquely depressing member of this echelon of teams and as a result are the ones we’re most eager to see go away, but there aren’t any considerably more appealing alternatives. Or at least you’d have to be one committed Kemba Walker acolyte to think so.

There’s a strong chance none of this matters, that all the teams discussed here are swiftly decapitated by their betters and we don’t think about them again until the draft or free agency. But the amount of basketball we have left no longer seems infinite and we should treasure what remains, wring whatever meaning from it we can. If we don’t hope for much out of the first round and our expectations are especially low of one-versus-eight and two-versus-seven matchups, that doesn’t mean our hope has zeroed out. Half the fun of sports is dreaming of what’s possible, no matter how faint those dreams might be. There’s always the prospect of being thrilled, and failing that, considering the chance is something to do.