Even though March Madness has its special taste such as upsets and the desire for filling out the perfect bracket, when it comes to finding the best team in the country, the NBA playoffs are in a completely different league. 

The NBA has a format of a best-of-seven series that rewards the teams that are actually the best, as the whole point of the post-season is to find the true champion. During a seven-game series, the real quality of the team has to show up because teams need to have consistent performances, skill, depth, coaching adjustments and, more importantly, mental toughness, which is something that gets tested constantly during an NBA playoff series. Compared to March Madness when one lucky night can cause an upset, in the NBA playoffs, one bad night or a lucky rebound doesn’t end a team’s season. You have to beat a team four times to move on, and that’s something that is genuinely hard to do.

On the other hand, March Madness is a single elimination tournament, and even though it’s thrilling, it isn’t the same as meaningful. When a 15-seed knocks off a 2-seed in the first round, fans go crazy about it, but they don’t realize that what actually happened was that a talented mid-major team got hot for 40 minutes while a power conference team had an off night. That’s not a better measure of basketball quality. 

In addition, a seven-game series has a beginning, middle and end. That is a big gap for teams to make adjustments and give opportunities for the star players to respond in the big moments. The rivalries also get more intense as the series goes on. The momentum swings throughout the series, which feels like a chess match between coaches, the moment an unexpected player rises to the occasion is something much less likely to happen in one single game.

Furthermore, the NBA playoffs are played by the best players in the world. Even though college players are talented, they are still developing. The fundamentals such as IQ, athleticism and execution are at a completely different level in the NBA playoffs. It’s completely different to watch someone like Nikola Jokic destroy a defense across a seven-game series than watching a 19-year-old freshman trying to handle the same pressure for the first time and the reality is that it’s not even close to the same product of entertainment.

In conclusion, the NBA playoffs are the standard that a basketball player wants to get to at some point in their careers. Upsets in college basketball might make some fans excited, but they show more luck than actual skill and truly being better than your opponent. Meanwhile, the NBA’s extended series builds a narrative that builds much more interesting storylines. Cinderella stories can be fun sometimes. But if you want to watch real drama, real stakes and a real champion, the NBA playoffs are where the best basketball is at.