Wednesday night's game, which pitted the Houston Rockets against the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Boston Celtics versus the Orlando Magic proved one thing: the time to watch the NBA is definitely the post-season.

Although I do follow the sport religiously, I must admit, I keep up with the season through the highlights on ESPN's SportsCenter. Of course there are some exceptions, such as when there's a Sunday afternoon marquee match-up like the Celtics-Lakers or LeBron vs. Kobe, but generally I find the regular season a bit of a bore. The play-offs, however, are a whole new animal.

Look at Wednesday night's action, as Eddie House and Rafer Alston got into a confrontation in Boston's game two win over Orlando. Sure, House did graze "Skip to My Lou" with a bump and a slight elbow, but Rafer popped him on the head like a mom would do her mischievous five-year-old son in the grocery store when she's had enough of him bouncing off the walls and refusing to listen. The way I see it, Rafer just needs to man up because this is House at his best.

I first saw House play in 1995 when he was a junior at Hayward high school, a campus 20 minutes southeast of Oakland, and the home of distinguished alum Jack Del Rio, head coach of the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars. House was the same height as he is now, just thinner, and he had great elevation on a deadly jump shot.

In the play-offs that year, he did as he did agaisnt the Magic and hit shots from everywhere on his way to 35 points. When I got home I had to call somebody and tell them about this kid, so I phoned my long-time friend Renaldo (coincidentally, a cousin of Maurice Jones-Drew, the star running back for Del Rio's Jaguars … the connections are endless) to remind him that I had just watched a junior in high school play and that this kid had a professional's jump shot, which was that lethal. Renaldo excitedly reminded me that this was the kid he told me about previously. A co-worker of his, Eddie House, Sr., said his son was a great ballplayer and I told Renaldo that Eddie was correct … in a big way.

House would go on to a distinguished career at Arizona State. In fact, I watched a Pac-10 game of the week during his senior year where he just ripped the Cal Bears to shreds with 61 points on an assortment of jumpers from every spot on the court. He was, and still is, fun to watch for me because that's how I played: moving constantly without the ball looking to pull the trigger quickly on a catch-and-shoot jumper from any place on the floor. Furthermore, I am glad for his success, not only because he is product of the region I come from, but also because he is a grounded young man.

In 1996, during my usual trip to the California state basketball championships in Sacramento, I ran into him on a trip to the concession stand and spoke to him briefly. I reminded him of how I had watched him play on a number occasions in his last two years of high school, of how he should carry himself as young man and budding NBA player (like his dad or others had not already told him this), and, not to my surprise, he was well aware of what was expected of him. I think this was also made easy because he knew about the controversy surrounding some other kids who were headed to Arizona State with him. Two players, one who has a brother starring for the Detroit Pistons (they shall remain nameless, thank you very much), got into some trouble before they ever stepped on the floor for the Sun Devils, so House had a pretty good idea of what not to do when he arrived in Tempe. It goes without saying that he has played for a number of teams, but he has found his niche with the defending champs and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

The Lakers on the other hand, turned up the intensity with an out-of-character physical performance from the team's veteran staples, Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher. Both sent messages to the Rockets that they can get physical too, but I don't think the Lakers need to get caught up in too much of that because that's not their game. It could be catastrophic, as it was for the '84 Lakers, a team of greyhounds, when Kurt Rambis was clothes-lined by Kevin McHale in game two of that year's NBA championship. The Lakers were taken out of their game and eventually fell in seven games to the more-physical Celtics as that play seemed too usher in the era of the "hard foul."

Reactionaries, like the Lakers that season, and Ron Artest and Rafer Alston, tend to fall by the wayside because they have managed to let the opponent get under their skin and throw their game off course, and that's the object.

Whatever the case, strap on the seatbelts because this year's play-off run will certainly be about separating the men from the boys. With that in mind, one has to wonder if what happens in these two series will matter because waiting in the wings is "King James." So, stay tuned.