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Ts Madison Net Worth
PHILADELPHIA – Knicks fans didn’t take over Wells Fargo Center. But they took away the win.
Amidst chants of ‘Let’s go Knicks! Let’s go Knicks!’ down the stretch, the visitors pulled out a come-from-behind 118-115 first-round Game 6 victory that eliminated Philadelphia – and gave their fans the right to celebrate. And gloat.
No, it wasn’t anywhere near as glaring as Games 3 and 4, where they overran Wells Fargo Center. The sight of all that orange and blue, and the sounds of all those loud New Yorkers had so embarrassed Philadelphia that star Joel Embiid understandably chastised his own fanbase.
“Disappointed. I love our fans. I think it’s unfortunate — and I’m not calling them out — but it is disappointing,” Embiid had said.
“Obviously you got a lot of Knicks fans, they’re down the road. I’ve never seen it, and I’ve been here for 10 years. Yeah, it kind of pisses me off, especially because Philly is considered a sports town. They’ve always shown up. I don’t think that should happen. Yeah, it’s not OK.”
The Sixers organization made calls to their season ticketholders over the prior two days, asking them to show up and be loud according to TNT.
And the 76ers current and past ownership bought out thousands of tickets to hand out to locals, trying to avoid a repeat.
Former minority owner Michael Rubin announced that he’d teamed up with owners 76ers Josh Harris, David Blitzer and David Adelman to buy “more than 2,000” tickets to be given to “first responders, health care professionals and other local Philadelphia-based organizations.”
It worked for most of the night. But not when it mattered.
Just 15 percent of the crowd Thursday night were Knick fans, Vivid Seats’ Fan Forecast projected using proprietary data. But that minority got the last laugh.
A small ‘F Embiid’ chant early on from Knicks fans got followed and drowned out by loud ‘F the Knicks’ responses.
Embiid was largely serenaded with cheers of “MVP! MVP!” by the partisan home crowd. And the center looked the part, utterly dominant in his time on the floor. He had a team-high 39 points and game-high tying 13 rebounds before fouling out.
But after Jalen Brunson’s 3-pointer gave the visitors a 101-95 lead with six minutes left, chants of ‘Let’s go Knicks!’ got louder and louder over the final minutes.
As Brunson stepped to the line up 111-108 with :53 to play, the Knick guard was the one hearing ‘MVP! MVP!’ from the New Yorkers that had made their way down the Turnpike and on the train.
And when he found Jason Hart for a tie-breaking 3-pointer with :25 left, most of the building went silent as the pockets of Knicks fans erupted.
