It's the Morning After and the Sixers Still Won Last Night

They had to win that game, and they did. Now AU is feeling good.

I wrote a lot yesterday about how well I remember Sixers-Celtics 2023, so let me start my remembrance of its 2026 mirror reverse with a moment I recall just as vividly as anything from the game itself: Talking to my mom on the phone after. My mom is the person I’ve shared the most Sixers memories with over the past decade — an honor she should share with my dad, but, well — and the person who I can most rely on to be as psychotic about the Sixers as I am; there was no question after a shitshow meltdown like that, the first thing I would have to do was call her and essentially apologize to her on the Sixers’ behalf for her ruined Mothers’ day. We broke down the game and how crushed we were about every part of it and how disappointed my dad would be and how much we hate the fucking Celtics, but how glad we at least were to have one another to split the misery with. I told her I loved her, and I really did.

Last night, of course, the first thing I did after the game was to call my mother. Well, actually, the first thing I did was to break down sobbing in Lisa’s arms, 13 years of built-up emotion being purged from my body seemingly at once — usually during big Sixers games she’ll be doing whatever in our apartment, tuning me out as much as she can until greeting me with a celebration or consolation hug once it’s over, but this time I actually called her over for the emotional support I sensed I would need during the final minutes. But after that, I called Mom, so we could have the conversation we had after 2023, and really after every Sixers playoff run since 2018, but finally from the other side. We broke down the game, and how insane it was that it unfolded how it did, and how proud we were of our guys for once and how happy my Dad was about it somewhere and how much we still hate the fucking Celtics. I told her I loved her, and I really did.

It’s Sunday morning, and the Sixers have still come back from down 3-1 to beat the Boston Celtics in the playoffs. And there’s more basketball still to come. What a world to be waking up to.

I knew there was a chance we would win yesterday, a real one, but if you had given me 10 guesses to how the game generally would go, I doubt I would have predicted this particular script. Maybe just because the Sixers won big in their three Ws in this series to that point, and seemingly have lost every big close game to the Celtics in the last decade — though in truth, there have been some major exceptions there — I assumed a win last night would also have to be a relatively comfortable one. And a couple times, it looked like that was exactly what we would get: After speeding out to a double-digit lead in the first quarter and then ballooning it back to 18 towards the end of the third, a never-in-doubt finale seemed an entirely possible outcome. But both leads got quickly termited into by the Celtics after, and the fourth quarter was close enough to hear yourself breathing throughout its final minutes. “Comfortable” was not the word for it.

And yet, I really did think they would pull it out. I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to say I knew; the air was certainly thick with collapse, there was definitely still a world in which the Celtics hit a pair of dagger threes in the final minute as the Sixers crumpled in the half-court and my buckling into Lisa lasted 10 times as long, with 20 times the tears. But... I just thought the Sixers were the better team. Not that that always matters, not that the Sixers haven’t had bigger losses to lesser teams, but despite a couple decisive Boston momentum runs in the second and fourth, for the first time in the history of Sixers-Celtics, I watched most of that game thinking man we got these guys. Would that for sure save us from the random cruelty of the Basketball Gods? Not necessarily, but it did feel like something.

Boston never even took the lead back in that fourth quarter. Lord knows they had chances, good looks, shots so open I had to cover my eyes with my hand and find out what happened from the crowd reaction. But it just wasn’t going to be their night; it was that lid-on-the-lead game that’s tortured us so often throughout the past decade, this time with the Sixers keeping the damn thing shut. We’d just need a couple buckets late, and we got ‘em. Game over. Series over. Sixers somehow not over.

There’s a lot of best parts of all of this, but the one I come to first and foremost is that the end of the day — well, the end of this day, though again, we actually got more days to come now — we really needed both Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. As he has for the last decade, Joel was the guy to drag us to the finish line, playing brilliantly and giving us everything and alternately reflecting our collective elation and frustration with every make or miss. But as he also has for the last decade, he did need to help to get us over that line, which as you no doubt recall, he hasn’t always gotten in the playoffs. Last night, he got it from Tyrese, his co-anchor, his one true co-star. When Jo’s body finally said no más late in the fourth, Tyrese asked for the clearout and got the two biggest buckets of his career (non-Ben Stiller division). Just a couple of Sixers bros putting up 30-10-5s in an elimination game on the road to make history, seal the 3-1 comeback and then wear dark sunglasses to the post-game press conference, no big deal. The dudes. Our guys. What a relief.

The other best best part is the people who come out of the woodwork to celebrate with us. Like no doubt thousands of Ricky folks, I got hit with a barrage of texts and social media messages after the win last night from people in my orbit, some of whom I’ve talked Sixers shit with for a decade or longer, some of whom I didn’t even realize that I was the main Sixers guy in their orbit. And then just like the 2023 Sixers’ Chernobyl impression allowed all the ghosts from Process past to hit us with a drive-by haunting, who should show up to .gif it up with us in celebration but fucking Sam Hinkie? The architect? The guy who’s gone so Sixers radio silent in the past decade that if he had secretly died during COVID, news about it might not have even gotten to us yet? Those are the moments that make all this hardest to believe, but also the moments that make it feel the most real.

They Do Actually Have to Win Now

It’s all so much that you do have to stop and remind yourself every so often that it’s still only the first round of the playoffs, that we haven’t even gotten to the Sixers’ most historically infamous save point of the postseason yet. We’ll worry about that tomorrow, or maybe later today, and we’ll be glad to get to stress about it. But the fact that everyone is popping out over this, the fact that r/Bill Simmons has essentially turned into Reddit Mardi Gras, the fact that ESPN used the verb “vanquish” in their headline about the Sixers winning this series, shows that we all sorta get the significance of this series win. Clown on us for going too hard over a narrow first-round victory if you want, and if you’re one of the many many NBA franchises who’s actually put a Conference Finals appearance in the books over the past quarter-century, you certainly have every right to. But we won’t be shamed for this. This is our Pathetic Super Bowl, and we will absolutely celebrate it like it’s the real thing. We deserve to.

And as Spike and I both concluded yesterday, we really, really, really needed that W. I was actually proud of myself that at no point during the game did I start doing the Electric Hedge, trying to boogie-woogie-woogie my way to convincing myself that even if they lost, hey it was a good loss and we should feel nice and maybe next year we can all go live in a cabin together and just hold hands and sing songs and eat berries and talk to the squirrels about how things are gonna feel different with the team this season. Nope: At any point last night, a win would have been 24 Hour Party People and a loss would’ve been Drag Me to Hell and there were no shades of Sixers Grey in between. Maybe that’s what got us through for once: I guess it’s much easier to run all the way past the finish line when you’re really not saving a single ounce of energy for the trip back.

I also mentioned yesterday that the 2023 Celtics loss permanently turned my Sixers fandom a different color. I worried it was one that would get even uglier after last night. I didn’t really consider the possibility that last night would have a similarly indelible effect on my Process Trusting in an actually positive way. But I can already feel that it has: My relationship with this team is cast in an entirely new light after last night, reshading and reshaping not just my perception of them in real time, but all my past memories of them, end-of-Inside Out style. Even 2023 doesn’t seem quite so bad anymore: It was just another stop on the team’s journey to winning, not the final word on its character and worthiness. Maybe it really was just James Harden’s and Doc Rivers’ fault all along. Maybe it was Tobias’.

Honestly, there’s always been a part of me that’s been worried that winning a series like this wouldn’t feel good enough. Most of us true sports sickos hate losing more than we really love winning. In 2023, when the Sixers took the fourth-quarter lead in Game Six and them pulling out the win started to cross the threshold from “not impossible” to “actually sorta likely” — before they ultimately coughed it up, of course — I did a quick temp-check on my own emotions and was a little confused by the reading. I felt a little scared, a little fraudulent. I felt like I wasn’t ready. I felt like it wasn’t going to feel how I wanted it to feel. And if I wasn’t going to enjoy a second-round series win against the Celtics anywhere near as much as I hated a second-round series loss to the Celtics, then what was the point of any of this? Had I really wasted the last decade emotionally investing in something whose upside was nowhere near commensurate to — or as likely a result as — its downside?

But no. Last night felt like it was supposed to feel. Last night felt fucking beautiful. Whether or not last night alone makes the whole thing worth it isn’t a call I feel prepared to make right now, and it’s one that might still be a little subject to change based on how this next series against the Knicks and potentially everything after goes. But this was great. This was real. This was unruinable. This was the reminder that there are reasons why I put myself through all this — dumb reasons, but not stupid reasons. I got to watch the biggest Sixers series win of my adult life unfold almost exactly how I’d want it to, against the exact team I’d want it to, with maximum joy on our side and maximum pain on theirs. I got to share the experience with the two people in my life who I love the most, and who have seen me through the most times of things going the other way. I got to go to sleep happy and wake up happy. And now I get to find out what happens when you win the Ultimate Game and still get to keep playing next series.

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Andrew Unterberger writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the ‘If Not, Pick Will Convey as Two Second-Rounders’ section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.