The Conference Championship round of the NBA playoffs is underway, and a prospective nightmare scenario has taken shape for David Stern and fans of the Association everywhere that can be summed up in two words: Spurs-Pistons.

A San Antonio win over the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference coupled with a Detroit victory over the Boston Celtics in the East wouldn’t just be bad for the league; it would be a near disaster.

After a season replete with amazing storylines from coast to coast — from the rebirth of the Celtics to the rise of the Hornets and new superstar point guard Chris Paul to the Pau Gasol trade that rejuvenated the Lakers and Kobe Bryant’s career in L.A. — a Pistons-Spurs match-up in the finals would be a slap in the face to literally millions of fans who were convinced that the NBA was back in a big way.

In short, it would be boring. Not just boring like a baseball game in mid-May can be, or like a Bud Selig press conference either, but boring in the mind-numbingly awful way that only the Pistons and Spurs could pull off. Boring in the kind of way that I wouldn’t even want to watch the highlights on ESPN unless I’d had a strong cup of coffee just beforehand to keep me awake. Boring in the kind of way that must have David Stern tossing and turning at night, as he prays for the sexy L.A.-Boston rivalry to be reborn.

Yes, a Celtics-Lakers showdown would be absolutely ideal for the league at this point, and Stern no doubt knows it. The star power is there with Kobe and Garnett and Co. The markets are huge and the rivalry is historic. And there’s definitely a possibility that neither Boston nor L.A. will advance beyond this round.

To be honest, we probably should have seen this threat coming. The Spurs have proven time and again that they know how to ramp up their intensity in the postseason and always come through when it counts, while the Pistons have been the most consistent threat to win the East for most of the last decade.

And yet, as Chris Paul and the Hornets looked more and more like a force to be reckoned with in the West, giving the Spurs all they could handle time and again and even putting them against the ropes a time or two, there was reason to hope that at the very least the Western Conference Champions would bring an exciting brand of basketball to the Finals.

But no more.

And so, the nation outside of San Antonio and Detroit (and those girls from my freshman dorm who thought Manu Ginobili was the cutest human being ever and made sure the rest of the world knew it) is left to hope that Kobe and Pau and KG and Pierce can pull through in their respective series to give us something worth watching. After all the trouble Boston had overcoming the Cavaliers in the East, I’m not holding out much hope for them. They’ll have the home-court advantage and not much else going for them in their match-up with the Pistons, a team that has been there before and knows how to win. The Celtics did just take game one, though, so they may just make it to the Finals after all.

The Lakers-Spurs match-up, on the other hand, seems much more compelling. True, the Lakers wouldn’t appear to have anyone who can guard Tim Duncan, but there probably isn’t a player in the league who can guard a healthy Kobe, and probably not a player on the Spurs who can guard an injured one.

Of course, it’s always at this point in a column ripping the Spurs or the Pistons that the author has to point out that the fact we find them boring is more of an indictment about today’s sports-viewing public than the teams themselves. The Pistons play solid, team-oriented, defensive-minded basketball, and the Spurs are much the same. Indeed, how often have we heard that the Spurs are perhaps too mild-mannered off the court to be really exciting on it: isn’t that what we should want our athletes to be?

The answer, of course, is who cares. This isn’t really an answer, but you get my point. If either the Spurs or Pistons make the Finals, it will be a big disappointment for the majority of NBA fans out there. If both of them do, the boos and cries of disgust will sound from coast to coast. Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that, because I, for one, have seen more than enough bland Finals match-ups to fill a lifetime.

Denis Griffin is a senior who wants to see some exciting basketball in his last few weeks on the Farm. Email him at djgriff@stanford.edu if you’re dreading a Spurs-Pistons just as much.