Clippers' toughness, togetherness around Kawhi Leonard in Game 7 makes them even more dangerous moving forward

The Clippers played with the scrappiness of an underdog in their gritty series win over the Mavericks

Everyone loves an underdog, even when the underdog is actually the favorite. One study found that in a matchup between two fictional teams, 88 percent of people rooted for the team described as the underdog. When those same people were told that the favorite lost the first three games of the seven-game series, half of them flipped their loyalty. The Los Angeles Clippers, who fell as the favorite in three straight embarrassing losses to the Denver Nuggets in the bubble last postseason, played the role of the underdog in Sunday's 126-111 Game 7 victory over the Dallas Mavericks -- maybe not according to betting lines, but according to perception and history.  After losing the first two games of the series -- at home -- the narrative of the Clipper Curse was as inevitable. When they fell behind by 19 points just eight minutes into Game 3 in Dallas, their fate was all but sealed.