Get ready for the real deal, two months of fire-eating, high-wire, slam-bang basketball -- in other words, something totally different than the type of contest played during the regular season. The intensity never diminishes during the playoffs because the bucks, reps and rings are on the line.

When teams compete in a best-of-seven series, there's plenty of time for the coaching staffs to study the game tapes. This means that both teams become totally familiar with every nuance of each other's game plans: Which plays does a team run after quarter-breaks and timeouts? Look out for the lob when so-and-so are playing together. If the strong forward doesn't get from point A to point B within two beats, then such-and-such a play falls apart. (And what will they do in that eventuality?) What do they show in the second half that they won't show in the first half? What have they shown in the playoffs that they haven't shown in the regular season? And so on.

Among other things, such familiarity means that offensive players have increased difficulty moving along their proscribed routes without being bumped, or without being welcomed by a double-team at their destination. This familiarity forces teams into the third or sometimes fourth options on their favorite plays. That's why the unfolding of each offensive sequence takes more time, increases the physical nature of each game, and generally results in less scoring.

With points at more of a premium, the importance of turnovers and empty possessions become magnified. Thus, caution is every coach's byword, flashy hit-or-miss passes are no longer worth the risk, and prematurely launched shots are absolutely unacceptable.

With the air taken out of the ball, the ongoing battles to occupy prime basket-side real estate are more crucial, and the players are more prone to physically confront and foul each other. The NBA's refs argue that more whistles are tooted in the post-season, and I believe them. However, if there are approximately five fouls committed for every foul called during regular-season competition, the ratio is at least doubled in the playoffs.

From here on in, it's no blood, no foul.

Substitution patterns also change come the playoffs. During a typical regular-season game, there's a period somewhere between the last two minutes of the first quarter and the first five or six minutes of the second quarter when both teams have their substitutes on the floor. (The second-half "blow" is shorter but similarly overlaps the third and fourth quarters.) Because the talent level is somewhat reduced at this time, the game tends to become looser and there are more open-court opportunities than when the starters are playing. Here's when one team can run itself into a quick 10-point lead -- a lead (or deficit) which isn't very significant, because there's so much game time remaining in which to make the necessary adjustments. But with every mistake amplified and each play so critical in the playoffs, even the second-stringers are advised to play cautiously. Moreover, most coaches will shorten the rotations of their subs, hoping to maximize the minutes in which their starters will be matched against the other guy's bench players -- which, in turn, forces a return to action of the opponents' starters.

	The regular season is just one big publicity tour for the Lakers.

A normal team in a normal regular-season game will utilize a nine-and-a-half-man rotation. Three or four starters will have full rotations (anywhere from 32-45 minutes or thereabouts), while the remaining starters might play 24-32 minutes. Accordingly, two non-starters might have limited rotations of 12-20 minutes.(Or double-rotations, where a player fills in at both the power-forward and center spots, or plays either the big guard or small forward, big guard or point guard, etc.) On certain teams one or two starters will even split their playing time almost equally with bench players.

In the playoffs, however, the normal playing patterns are usually reduced to eight-and-a-half-man rotations. When Pat Riley coached the Knicks during the 1994 playoffs, he often played only seven players per game.

Add up all the numbers, and the result is that every team's core players will routinely play significantly more minutes from now on.

This means that teams with deep benches (like Sacramento) won't have the same sizeable advantage that they'd enjoyed during the regular season over teams with short benches (like the Lakers). Of course, having more quality players on hand is always a crucial factor in the event of injuries, foul trouble, ejections and/or arrests.

Also, in modern times, there are no back-to-back games in the playoffs, and the traveling is much less frantic than during the regular season. The result is that old heads have an increased advantage over young legs.

It's also axiomatic that the first game of any given series is usually up for grabs. This is when the coaches can surprise each other, and the underdog has the best chance of "stealing" a game. That's why the higher-seeded teams used to dread best-of-five series. Lose the opening gambit, and the home-court advantage gained by six-and-a-half months of hard work is suddenly defunct.

Obviously, every game is important -- yet the third and the fifth are often especially pivotal in the losing, gaining, re-losing or regaining of both momentum and the home-court edge.

But the seventh game of any series is always a crap shoot. A tweaked ankle, a bad call, a missed free throw, a misdribble, and the game can turn either way. This reality makes the sixth game a battle royal -- one team wants to avoid a seventh game at all costs, while their opponent will do anything to stay alive.

A common danger in trying to understand the unfolding of a playoff series is to overreact to the results game-by-game. It always seems that the team that won the last game played will never lose again, and that the loser can never win. But within the war, each battle exists within a continuum and is also a separate entity. Even the slightest between-game adjustment (changing the angle of a pick, doubleteaming the pivot on the catch instead of the move, having this guy guard that guy, etc.) can have a dramatic impact on the next game.

So here we are. Privileged to watch the best of the best at their best. Let the real games begin!

Charley Rosen, a former coach in the Continental Basketball Association, has been intimately involved with basketball for the better part of five decades -- as a writer, a player, a coach and a passionate fan. Rosen's books include "More Than a Game," "The Cockroach Basketball League," "The Wizard of Odds: How Jack Molinas Almost Destroyed the Game of Basketball," "Scandals of '51: How the Gamblers Almost Killed College Basketball" and "The House of Moses All-Stars: A Novel."