The Sixers’ woes against the Knicks go beyond the 49-point thrashing they received on national television on Wednesday evening. They go beyond the remnants of the team’s 2024 playoff loss to New York. When the Knicks come to South Philadelphia, those issues begin before tip-off.
The Sixers have a Knicks fan problem that was exacerbated during Wednesday’s loss. It sounded like the game was being played at Madison Square Garden with how many Knicks fans were in attendance. When the Sixers are hosting New York, the prices jump for tickets on the secondary market. That’s been the case for a while. I can distinctly remember being a freshman in college in the city and overhearing a couple New Yorkers discuss getting “cheap” tickets to a Sixers-Knicks game because the fans here “don’t care.” This was during New York’s Carmelo Anthony era and during the Sixers’ lone season with Andrew Bynum on the roster. Can you blame Philadelphians for not caring at that point?
There will be some consternation, as there has been over the years, blaming fans in the Philly region for “allowing” this to happen. The day I blame the fans is the day I stop writing. There’s a difference between being a bandwagon fan who tunes out during some lean years, which is fine for casual observers, and being just so utterly fed up that you don’t want to put your money into a claw machine you know is never going to give you a prize. Maybe it’ll latch onto one for a fleeting moment, but that bad boy is slipping away like a Game 7 victory in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
Again, I don’t begrudge Sixers fans for not going on Wednesday. I considered going just to do something, but the ticket prices were more than they usually are for a weeknight game on the likes of SeatGeek and StubHub, so I passed. Are people going to be mad that fans decided not to see the Joel Embiid-less Sixers lose by nearly 50 freaking points? Are we supposed to be mad at fans that they didn’t expose themselves to embarrassment of that magnitude?
People in Philly are voting with their wallet. This isn’t 2018 or 2019. The Sixers, after a plethora of second-round exits and the infuriating way they handled the trade deadline last week, aren’t a prime asset in anyone’s entertainment portfolio right now outside the hardest of the hardcore fans. When Embiid plays, they’re awesome and the building blocks of in-prime superstar Tyrese Maxey and beloved rookie VJ Edgecombe are there, but people don’t want to get hurt again while getting wrapped up in the perpetual nonsense that is the NBA regular season.
Speaking of wallets, let’s just be honest. New Yorkers, on the whole, have more cash than the average Philadelphian. A Knicks game in South Philly is way cheaper than a Knicks game at MSG. Whether people are doing a quick Amtrak trip, taking a Peter Pan bus or are simply transplants to a less expensive urban dwelling, money talks for that fan base. Knicks fans, even during their frequent dark times, love their team. Given the juice the franchise has had in recent years, it’s not surprising to see this hit another level when the Knickerbockers come to town.
There doesn’t appear to be a clear-cut fix for this. People are out on the Sixers locally. They have distinct disdain for management. New Yorkers are willing to fork over the dough for a quick, cost-effective road trip. Winning cures all and it will likely take the Sixers reaching a threshold they haven’t hit in a quarter of a century, whether that’s merely an Eastern Conference Finals appearance or a NBA Finals berth outright, to get that arena truly rocking again.