The Lakers were Hollywood's team: overhyped superstars, bigger than life, a brand name wrapped in a mythology wrapped in Jack Nicholson's sunglasses. The Pistons were from a working town. They were "scrappy." "Tough." "Fighters."
I listened to the game on the radio last night. No ... actually, I was watching it on ESPN GameCast, and watched the Lakers jump out to an early lead, and the Pistons reverse the lead and overpower the Lakers, like a good arm-wrestling match, pushing back against an early attack, biceps straining, and slowly bending the wrist back, back, back...
I want to come up with a sophisticated reason why I was rooting for the Pistons. I don't watch basketball usually, and I can't talk intelligently about which team matched up better. So here's the truth: it's nostalgia. I grew up in Ecorse, MI, a suburb of Detroit, and any team that hails from Detroit is my feel-good team to root for. Doesn't matter what sport: the Tigers, the Lions, the Pistons, the Red Wings, the Shock, whatever. Nostalgia is an emotion that has no logic behind it. It just feels good to root for your hometown team: remembering the colors, the old uniforms, the players of your youth. No logic at all. Honestly, most of those teams were terrible for most of my childhood, except for the Tigers' World Series season of 1984, and the Bad Boys who won two NBA championships. But I found myself talking about the old Pistons: Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Dennis Rodman with natural-color hair and no tattoos. The Microwave. Who was that? Vinnie Johnson? He was the Microwave because he could heat things up in a hurry. Man, that was a classic nickname.
The best article about the Piston's win yesterday wasn't an analysis so much as a celebration rant. I don't like Mitch Albom when he goes sappy and mystical and talks about heaven and angels, but this is just a fun article: http://www.freep.com/sports/albom/mitch16_20040616.htm
Just read the opening sentence, and you'll start grinning. "They attacked all night, the way you attack a fire, the way you attack an enemy hill, no counting on luck, fate or chance, just sheer will and your own pounding lungs, drive the rim, drive the lane, until finally, the horn sounded..."
Speaking of Ecorse, Michigan (48229), an odd coincidence. Through my work I've been communicating with a local publisher of prints. He has a new line of baseball prints, including a cutaway view of a baseball, and some great prints of pitching grips. (See them here: http://www.goodnaturepublishing.com/baseball.htm)
Anyway, I saw a short essay he had written about growing up in Detroit, watching Mickey Lolich and Al Kaline and the rest. Well, I had to respond, because my dad grew up watching the same guys, and I grew up hearing Al Kaline as the color guy for the tv broadcast of the Tigers. After a couple of emails, it turns out he used to live not in Detroit, but in Ecorse, our old hometown! Odd, odd, odd.
He mentioned the orange skies of Ecorse in his email. The steel mill would turn the sky orange when they poured steel - as my father described it, they were pouring molten steel into a huge vat, and the heat was what caused the color. I remember this as an amazing spectacle as a kid, like our local version of the Northern Lights. (Of course, I just thought it was cool, but it was probably toxic: http://www.detnews.com/2003/metro/0306/10/a01-189378.htm)
7:47:49 AM 
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