Tonight the league's webcasts become more important than ever, as does NBATV, the only venue for at least three (it could be as many as six) of the first-round games.

The NBATV folks will also broadcast playoff classics this afternoon (a Phoenix-Houston final from '98, followed by the New York-Houston game with The Shot) along with playoff lead-ins and chat shows (the latter start at 6pm Eastern).

If you're stuck in a town, city, village or household that doesn't get NBATV, you've had trouble with webcasts, and you're a Firefox user, try signing in again, and watching the webcast, through Internet Explorer or Safari.