Don’t Blow it Up Just Yet! The Sixers Have Forced GAME 7!
Think about the feeling you had in the 48 hours in-between Game 5 and Game 6 in the Sixers series against the Hawks. After the historic collapses in Game 4 and Game 5 it felt like the sky was falling. The hope that the Sixers would at least make the conference finals in their best chance to win an NBA championship in two decades went up in smoke in humiliating fashion.
The Sixers didn’t just lose, they lost in a way that made the nation stunned and sympathize with Philly fans. Well . . . just a little. Forcing one self to listen to the national reaction of the Sixers collapses was sadomasochistic. But no matter how hard you tried to avoid listening to sports media, there was truly no escape. Only a full-blown media blackout would have spared listening to the full-blown humiliation your basketball team was getting. The sky was falling. Everyone should be traded. Everyone should be fired. Change the uniform, change the owner, change the name.
But here’s the one thing about the Sixers two chokes, it’s that there was still a Game 6. While it felt inevitable that the Hawks would take care of the stunned and wounded Sixers at home in Game 6, there was still a sliver of hope that things could suddenly get better. And sometime in the middle of the game after a rocky start, things began to click.
Starters and bench players began to step up and had an answer against Trae Young and the Hawks. Joel Embiid gutted it out playing 38 minutes while getting 22 points and 13 rebounds, even without his best stuff he hung on until the very end. Tobias Harris did not disappear this time scoring 24 points in 39 minutes, and making two hugely clutch free throws to put the game away. Seth Curry looked like his brother by also scoring 24 points including 6 three-pointers, each of them huge. And finally there is the rookie and new fan-favorite Tyrese Maxey. He stayed on the court longer than Ben Simmons and scored 16 points and got 7 rebounds. Maxey also shot clutch free throws making 5 out of 8. And Ben Simmons shockingly attempted just 4 free throws and made 2 of them, which a victory in itself.
While the Sixers battled and went through the grind in Game 6, Atlanta still didn’t go away. The usual big Hawks plays were there: Floaters, alley oops and lobs, big 3-pointers. Trae Young had another insane Trae Young game with 34 points including 5-10 from the three-point line. When Young made that wild 3-pointer while being guarded by Maxey as the shot-clock expired, it looked like the tides were about to turn.
When the lights went out in the arena it looked like a bad omen for the Sixers. Like the Sixers season was about to go Lights-Out, and that would become a headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer the next day. Or The Undertaker or Bray Wyatt would pop out and beat everyone up. But thankfully it turned out to be a false alarm as the Sixers rebounded from the short break and took care of business.
It didn’t feel real until the clock hit triple zeroes, but the Sixers managed to overcome back-to-back soul crushing collapses into what might be the franchise’s biggest win since Game 1 of the 2001 NBA Finals.
The Sixers are back from the dead and will be bringing the Hawks back to Wells Fargo Center for Game 7 and all the marbles on the line. What will happen in Game 7 will probably be another nail-biter, and obviously should be necessary in the first place, but here we are. Regardless of what does happen we Sixers fans will still have this Game 6 performance when the team showed some fight and resilience after suffering one of the worst losses in NBA history.
Maybe we don’t need to blow up the team and watch the sky fall just yet, because Game 7 is Sunday night. And you see what the sign guy says what will happen?
