Sixers’ Collapse and Takeover Was About Exhaustion, Not Philly Fans

Now that there is some time to process the Philadelphia 76ers’ season, which ended with a whimper at the hands of the rival New York Knicks, it’s easier to understand why this one hit Philadelphia so hard, and to lose to the Knicks at Xfinity Mobile Arena, which felt more like Madison Square Garden South than a Sixers home game, made it sting even worse.

Much is being made in the national media, which is generally slanted toward New York teams, about Philly fans not showing up for the game and selling their tickets on the secondary market. But I’d implore those talking about this to look at the totality of this season for the 76ers.

This team held the third pick in the NBA Draft back in June 2025 after going 24-58 with injuries stacking up all season long. They used that pick to draft VJ Edgecombe, who fit perfectly into Nick Nurse’s offensive scheme and formed one of the more impressive backcourts in the Eastern Conference with Tyrese Maxey. Kelly Oubre Jr. played well, and despite injuries to Paul George, Maxey, and Joel Embiid throughout the season, the team never collapsed. They struggled, but never quit. In the Boston series, Embiid missed the first half of the series, and things looked grim, but the Sixers fought back and beat the Celtics in seven.

So why is there so much frustration?

We’ll start with the timing. The night before Game 4, Xfinity Mobile Arena was the site of another season dream coming to an end when the Flyers lost in heartbreaking overtime fashion to the Hurricanes. Less than 24 hours later, the Sixers and Knicks tipped off, and the game tilted almost immediately. Add in the fact that the crowd heavily favored the Knicks, and it became a bad look overall.

Both the Flyers and Sixers were coming off disappointing seasons, had lottery picks, and fought through injuries before rallying into the playoffs in improbable ways. Yet one team is revered for its effort, and the other is looked at as a disappointment.

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The reason for that is expectations. The Flyers hadn’t made the playoffs in five years and were given almost no chance to qualify, while the Sixers were coming off a 24-win season but still entered the playoffs carrying expectations. Expectations are higher, and with a core that’s aging and not getting any healthier, Edgecombe was viewed as the missing piece that could finally get the team over the hump. They beat a Celtics team that looked poised to eliminate them early in the series, but they emptied the tank doing it.

Philadelphia is a city that appreciates effort, and while the easy thing to do is blame the Game 4 crowd or point to the optics of Knicks fans taking over the arena, I’d argue there’s a much bigger factor to look at if you want the root cause of this series loss: the bench play. Edgecombe and Maxey played nearly every minute of the series, and while they’ll never say it publicly, their legs told the story. Everything was flat, and the Knicks were constantly in a better rebounding position because they knew those shots were coming off short.

The Sixers rode their guards into the playoffs and simply ran out of gas in the second round.

I want to go back to what I believe quietly sank this team’s chance at a deep playoff run: trading away Jared McCain. McCain was never going to solve every issue on the roster, but he could’ve absorbed some of those guard minutes that Maxey and Edgecombe were forced to carry. That’s where the focus should be now. I don’t think Nick Nurse is the problem. The bigger issue is the front office constructing a roster with so little margin for error that one exhausting playoff series completely drained the team.

This series loss doesn’t fall on the fans. Fans can’t suit up and take minutes while exhausted guards try to survive a playoff series, nor did they construct a roster that lacked enough depth to survive two rounds. Philadelphia is an incredibly passionate sports city, and the reaction to these two playoff exits showed the difference between disappointment and distrust. The Flyers left the ice to chants because fans believed they emptied the tank. The Sixers left the floor with frustration hanging over the building because fans saw the same structural problems surface yet again.

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