To stave off Knicks fans, 76ers ownership buy 2,000 tickets to Game 6

PHILADELPHIA — Smart money’s not the only group taking up real estate in downtown Philadelphia.

Add Knicks fans to the list after their takeover of the Wells Fargo Center in Games 3 and 4 of their first-round playoff matchup against the 76ers, both of which featured “M-V-P” chants for Jalen Brunson and “Let’s go Knicks” chants all throughout the night.

Knicks fans made such an impression on the Sixers’ home court, the franchise’s ownership group of Josh Harris, David Blitzer and David Adelman, plus Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin, teamed together to purchase 2,000 tickets to Game 6 between the 76ers and Knicks on Thursday.

They are spinning it as free tickets distributed to first responders, health care professionals, community groups, and other local Philadelphia-based organizations.

In truth, the franchise simply doesn’t want another hostile takeover of its own home court.

It doesn’t want Knicks fans to infiltrate Game 6.

“That’s up to them,” starting forward Josh Hart said after shootaround at Wells Fargo Center on Thursday afternoon. “This is a good sports town. Those 2,000 tickets are going to a good cause. All love to the first responders, but yeah that was interesting to see.”

Home-court advantage will be pivotal for the 76ers, who entered Thursday’s matchup trailing the Knicks, 3-2, in the playoff series. The Knicks coughed up an opportunity to close-out the Sixers back at Madison Square Garden in Game 5 on Tuesday.

“Whenever you have the opportunity to beat a team, you wanna do that,” said Hart. “So we had a huge opportunity last game, it is what it is. And now we have another opportunity to battle a tough team in a tough environment.”

Now, the Knicks have to walk into the belly of the beast and come out victorious to avoid a win-or-go-home Game 7 against the reigning league MVP Joel Embiid and his rapidly ascending co-star Tyrese Maxey.

“The fact of the matter is that we just need to be ready to go,” Jalen Brunson said on Thursday. “Obviously, they’re gonna be home, it’s gonna be — obviously this place is gonna be filled with so much excitement just from fans, and so for us to be ready for an environment like that, we gotta do everything we can to not let our minds wander, and just gotta be mentally locked in.”

The Knicks, of course, already won once on the road in this series. They took Game 4 courtesy of 47 points from Brunson despite sixth man Bojan Bogdanovic leaving the game with a season-ending foot injury one minute into his time on the court.

Brunson’s crew hoped to make it a gentleman’s sweep with a victory at The Garden in Game 5, but 46 points from Maxey — who hit clutch shots both at the end of regulation and overtime — swung the pendulum back in the Sixers’ favor.

“Obviously when you have an opportunity to do something [close an opponent out], you’ve gotta take advantage of it. Clearly we didn’t do that, but for us, it’s all about how can you respond in this situation tonight?” Brunson said. “You can be upset about it, you can be pissed, but what are you gonna do to make sure that now you’re ready for the next one. So you can’t sit around and just be pissed off about what happened. You gotta actually do something about it and just let it go.”

The Sixers are now hoping to build on their newfound momentum, and they’ve taken a new approach to curating the environment they want for an elimination game at home.

There is sure to be less of a Knicks presence in hostile Philadelphia territory with the 76ers fighting for what’s left of their season — especially given the lack of ticket supply with ownership scooping up what’s left.