So much is happening in sports right now that I’m not sure I can touch on all of it without going into a Buzz Bissinger-like tirade. Here goes anyway:

• It doesn’t matter if LeBron James made 35-of-35 shots, went for 85 and the Cavaliers won, 88-66, last night. If The King doesn’t get consistent contributions from his court, this is going to be a short Eastern Conference semifinal. I picked the Celtics in seven before the series started, but that’s because I expected LeBron to shoot a better percentage than my 1995 home loan, and I thought at least one of his teammates would take advantage of all the attention Boston’s defense would be paying to him. Zydrunas Ilaguaskas did it for about the first 10 minutes of Game 2, but that’s it.

For any of the cable blowhards to put the first two games squarely on James’ shoulders shows that they’re being paid to make noise rather than fuel any useful discussion of sports. Anyone who has been paying attention to the NBA knows that 1-on-5 doesn’t get you very far in the playoffs, much less against a superior Celtics team.

Just ask Bernard King and Michael Jordan.

• If you think Spygate is dead just because some disgruntled former employee didn’t have the goods and his 15 minutes of fame are up, you probably think Hilary Clinton is in it for the democracy. There is still too much political pandering for Sen. Arlen Specter to do. And not only is it pandering season, we’re only a couple of conventions away from the pandering equivalent of the four weeks between the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve.

Spygate won’t go away until Specter is satisfied, and he won’t be satisfied until he can tell his constituents (Steelers and Eagles fans) that they got hosed, and he can tell one of the mega-corporations that has him in its back pocket (Comcast) that he’s got Roger Goodell running scared and willing to talk turkey with them about the NFL Network.

If you haven’t already, Patriots fans, do a little research on Specter’s relationship with Comcast and the cable giant’s current squabble with the NFL. Trust me, when you’re done, you’ll be a lot less angry at Matt Walsh and cast a suspicious eye toward Washington and also the reckless members of the media who are desperately clinging to their dying dream that this is their Watergate.

• As nice as it is for Celtics fans to be able to care about basketball again in May, overall, the NBA playoffs have been dreadful so far. Aside from the first Spurs-Suns game, there hasn’t been one memorable contest. It just goes to show how meaningless what was supposed to be the best regular season in a long time was.

• I never thought he’d surpass Wil Cordero (or Glen Hoffman, Jackie Gutierrez and Rey Quinonez, for that matter), but Julio Lugo has earned the distinction of worst Red Sox shortstop in the last 35 years.

• Don’t get too excited about what’s happening in the other Eastern Conference semi, Celtics fans. The Orlando Magic may be a tougher match-up than for Boston in the next round, especially with Chauncey Billups hobbled. The Magic present some of the same problems the Atlanta Hawks did in the first round. In Dwight Howard, they have an athletic force of nature in the paint who can bother Kevin Garnett and block a lot of shots, a la Josh Smith. Rashard Lewis is a match-up nightmare for Paul Pierce, sort of a Josh Smith with a better jump shot. And when Hedu Turkoglu gets his stroke going, he can single-handedly get the Magic back into a game or take the C’s out of it, like Joe Johnson.

• Can’t really call this going out on a limb. but I don’t care how much some of the preseason favorites in the American League (Detroit, Cleveland, Seatle) are underachieving so far, the New York Yankees will not even sniff the playoffs this season unless they A) find at least two, if not three, new starting pitchers and B) give Brian McNamee’s phone number to Derek Jeter and Robinson Cano.

• Us media types are a lot more careful to tout an athlete as a genuinely good guy these days. You can never tell how many Mindy McCreadys and Victor Contes they have in their closet, especially when your only exposure to them is a few minutes of clubhouse conversation. But I’ll go with my gut on this one and say that Justin Masterson, the next fruit to ripen on Theo Epstein’s prospect vine, is, and will always be, a great guy. This son of a missionary goes to the ballpark every day with a sense of wonderment rather than entitlement, an increasingly rare trait among highly-touted prospects. Local fans always have a little extra rooting interest when a Jonathan Papelbon or Jacoby Ellsbury passes through Maine on their way to the big time, but Justin Masterson might be the first former Sea Dog that I’ll be rooting for even if he ends up in Yankee pinstripes one day.

• I’d be losing a lot more sleep about what this Eight Belles thing says about our society if it hadn’t already struck me that had her unfortunate demise happened in some other countries, the spectators’ mouths would have been watering rather than agape with shock and concern.