Rooting for the visiting team/underdog

I recently went to my first NBA game ever, and a playoff at that. It was definitely an experience, and made even more memorable by the fact that myself and my 3 fellow Obies were routing for the Chicago Bulls and not the Cleveland Cavaliers. I'm not from Chicago, but I have no ties to Cleveland and since I was sitting with 3 friends from Chicago, I thought why not? They are the underdog anyway.

Well, Cleveland fans didn't take too well to us being in their stadium (hmm I wonder why) and so we got some trash talking on the way to the game. For the most part though, the fans were pretty quiet during the game. A friend of mine made the biggest poster in the stadium and people gave us dirty looks, but that was about it. This friend also made a lot of comments during the game that I'm surprised no one responded too. Thankfully the people directly in front of us were from Detroit, not really rooting for anyone, and didn't really care.

I think part of the reason they weren't saying anything was because for the first 3 quarters they had nothing to say. It was a close game until the fourth quarter and so they couldn't rub in our faces, but as soon as they put the game in Lebron's hands and built their lead, we got all the shit talking we could handle. Some of it was dumb (the girls in front of us made a sign that read "Check the score Chicago" purposely held to face us instead of at any possible cameras like most people), others creepy (another guy stared at us while holding his Cleveland shirt) and others just plain obnoxious (said t-shirt guy was a little too Cleveland proud, also wearing an Indians hat). In the end, he said he was allowed to wear said hat cause he's from Cleveland followed by something dumb to which I responded, I'm from LA, and guess who won the championship last year?

The Bulls will probably lose the series and Cleveland will either make it to the finals or get beat by the Celtics (I hope), but my first NBA game was definitely much more enjoyable as someone rooting for the other team. And hey, now I'm an honorary Chicagoan, so take that Cleveland.