At this point of the late winter/early spring, Philadelphia sports fans expected to be focusing on Big Five schools playing in the NCAA tournament, or perhaps looking ahead to the Phillies and the start of the major league baseball season in a couple of weeks.
What no one imagined -- not even the biggest optimist of the local cynics -- was the city's mostly ignored NBA franchise commanding attention right now.
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| Andre Iguodala's 19.8 points a game lead Philly. (Getty Images) |
In a challenging five-games-in-seven-days stretch that was supposed to jolt them back to reality, the Sixers won four times, highlighted by a road win in Detroit last Wednesday and capped by a 103-96 home victory over the defending champion San Antonio Spurs on Saturday night before a sellout crowd of 19,942 at the suddenly rocking Wachovia Center.
Although it was just the second capacity crowd of the season, it was the second in six days. The Sixers were averaging a dismal 13,487 fans before Saturday, but the boisterous crowd was a clear indication that the surge has changed attitudes about the team.
"It was a great game for us," Philadelphia coach Maurice Cheeks said. "We love playing in a building rocking like that, the fans in there cheering for us."
Of course, that's a new phenomenon.
After back-to-back losses to the Orlando Magic and Atlanta Hawks in early February, the Sixers dropped to 18-30 and it appeared team executives once again would be making the drive up the New Jersey Turnpike for the draft lottery in Secaucus in mid-May.
That figured to be the extent of the postseason participation for a franchise that hasn't qualified for the playoffs since 2005.
But then the Sixers rattled off five straight wins right before the All-Star break and they have a 15-4 record since Feb. 5 -- the second-best record in the league during that span behind the Houston Rockets.
Philadelphia (33-34) still is a game below .500, but that's good enough for a solid seventh place in the weak Eastern Conference -- just one game behind the sixth-place Washington Wizards.
"They were talking about next year, and all of a sudden that's gone," Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers said of the Sixers. "Players hear that, too. Mo (Cheeks) had to fight through that. I don't know who's doing a better job; I think he's done an amazing job."
That much is obvious simply by glancing at the Philadelphia roster, which is a collection of mostly young players (some with promise) and veteran journeymen. Aside from swingman Andre Iguodala and point guard Andre Miller, there might not be another player on the team recognizable to most NBA fans.
