Mavs-Spurs pseudo upset aside, there have been two underdog tales in this year’s playoffs: the Bulls blow-for-blow slugfest with the Celtics, and the late Sixers’ battle against the Magic.  Superficially, the comparisons are obvious (They’re scrappy!  They’re young!  They employ shooting guards with over-inflated senses of self-worth!), but their narratives couldn’t be more different.

It’s no shocking revelation that everyone outside of Boston is rooting for the Bulls.  For one, they’re playing against the defending champs.  With the ring comes the target on your back, and with the target comes legions of fans pining for your demise.  Add in the Bulls’ unmistakable charm, and it’s easy to see how the town was painted red.  Derrick Rose and Ben Gordon have become the faces of the revolution; one a quiet, extremely gifted rookie that wasted no time staring into the spotlight, and the other a disgruntled, steel-willed, yet Napoleonic shooting guard who makes all the gutsy plays.  Not that John Salmons didn’t share (more than share, really) in the heroics last night, but for everything the Bulls have been able to accomplish in this series, Rose and Gordon have been the icons.

The games have been phenomenally competitive.  It’s beyond explanation.  But part of the reason why this series has captured the attention of hardcore NBAers and casual fans alike isn’t simply because it’s great entertainment and playoff basketball.  In a single series, Bulls-Celtics has refuted claims of NCAA supremacy by claiming college basketball’s greatest attributes as its own.  You want hustle?  Watch Paul Pierce and John Salmons gut it out for 55 minutes, or Joakim Noah for one play.  You want upsets?  Hell, these are the defending world champs against a team bad enough to pick first overall in last year’s draft.  Maybe you’re even a fan of the generally low-quality play in college ball?  These teams go back and forth for stretches without creating anything that could be considered a good offensive possession.  If you’re looking for that college atmosphere, both arenas have been rocking their foundations.  There are no egos to be found aside from the pride of winning basketball teams (yes, Bulls, that means you, too).

And now, you’ve got your one game, winner-take-all Game 7.

The Sixers weren’t able to capture any of Chicago’s magic.  Not only do they suddenly find themselves eliminated by Orlando minus Dwight, minus Courtney Lee, and minus about a half of basketball from Hedo Turkoglu, but the tale of their demise comes with little sorrow.  If the Bulls had lost at any point last night, today would be the funeral for the upset that could have been.  The Bulls are the lovable rebels without a cause, whereas the Sixers are the insurgency waging guerilla warfare on Dwight Howard’s smile.  That charm, that charisma that Chicago has?  Orlando has it in bundles.  People want to like this Magic team, and as such they want them to succeed.  The Sixers stand directly opposed to that.

After Game 1, both upsets seemed fanciful.  Chicago was suddenly a very real threat to Boston’s playoff run, and Philly repeated their “shock the world” Game 1 performance of a year ago.  But from that point on, the rigors of a multi-game series took the teams on opposite paths.  The Bulls used the extended exposure to showcase critical parts of their rotation, making the group that much more magnetic; it started with Rose and Gordon, but the baton has passed to Salmons and Miller, to Hinrich and Thomas, to Noah and even Vinny Del Negro.  I’ve never in my life considered myself a Ben Gordon fan, but his play has been too spectacular to ignore and his defiance impossible to forget.  As the game count increased so did the number of heroes, and the discussion of blown calls only fueled the support of the underdog.

Despite winning two games in spectacular fashion, the Sixers always seemed like fool’s gold.  Andre Iguodala has played well, but Thaddeus Young going absolutely bananas from three?  Huge buckets from Donyell Marshall?  You’ve gotta be kidding me.  They were breaking down a precious part of our basketball establishment with unholy shooting, pesky defense, and let’s say it – flat out luck.  Even good teams need luck to be successful, but this was a team that needed luck to be good.  The Sixers were the worst kind of underdog: the flukey misfits that stumbled into the right place at the right time, only to come crashing back to earth with the exposure of their mortality.  Looking at the team in a one-game vacuum, all seemed to be well.  But upon the further examination of five more games, it becomes abundantly that the Sixers weren’t as compelling, as likeable, or as interesting as the Bulls.  It’s a luxury that The Tournament can’t afford its viewers, but one that allows us to understand why even the Sixers’ wins were unsettling and why the Bulls are a true underdog story.

Without letting this devolve into too much of an NCAA-bashing post, I do want to drop one truth bomb.  The differences between these series point out why pro basketball will always be superior to college ball: the superlatives afforded to the best of NCAA competition (high energy, upsets, fundamentals, etc.) can easily be seen in solid NBA play under the right circumstances, but the advantages of pro basketball (superior product, more dynamic talent, extended narrative development) can never be co-opted by the sacred Tournament.  We don’t care about the Bulls because they’ve played a bunch of close games in a row.  We care about the Bulls because they’ve played a bunch of close games in a row against the same opponent, and that level of competition combined with the ‘character development’ of Chicago’s roster makes for a damn entertaining storyline.