{"id":229683,"date":"2026-05-13T07:18:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T07:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/229683\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T07:18:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T07:18:29","slug":"josh-hart-after-knicks-sweep-76ers-i-used-to-think-philly-was-a-sports-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/229683\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Hart after Knicks sweep 76ers: \u2018I used to think Philly was a sports town\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Josh Hart has firsthand knowledge of how much Philadelphia sports fans support their teams.<\/p>\n

The New York Knicks forward is a national championship winner at Villanova University.<\/p>\n

However, after New York completed<\/a> a four-game, second-round sweep against the Philadelphia 76ers at Xfinity Mobile Arena in a matchup that felt like it was played at Madison Square Garden because of the volume of Knicks fans, Hart is changing his tune.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to think Philly was a sports town,\u201d Hart said after the game. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it is anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no official count of how many Knicks fans there were in comparison with hometown 76ers fans, but Philadelphia star Joel Embiid was booed when shown on the giant video screen just before the game, if that gives any idea.<\/p>\n

When these two teams met in the playoffs in 2024, Knicks fans took over in Philadelphia. It led to Embiid\u2019s pleading for 76ers fans<\/a> not to sell their tickets ahead of this year\u2019s series between the two teams.<\/p>\n

Clearly, it didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

With Philadelphia facing an 0-3 deficit on Mother\u2019s Day and the Phillies playing across the parking lot at the same time, locals didn\u2019t appear too interested in making sure New York fans didn\u2019t have access to Xfinity Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt absolutely sucks,\u201d Sixers star guard Tyrese Maxey said afterward. \u201cThat\u2019s all I can really say about it. It\u2019s hard. It\u2019s definitely difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s only one way to put a stop to it, and we have to go out there and win these games. Just being completely honest, we were better when we played them in The Garden the entire season. I know we lost games 2 and 1, but Game 2 was better, and the regular season was better. I was telling them, it just felt louder here for them than it did in The Garden.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Knicks fans, it\u2019s cheaper to see New York play in Philadelphia than it is at Madison Square Garden, where ticket prices have become very expensive. Philadelphia is roughly 90 miles from Manhattan and a little over a 90-minute drive without traffic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Hart has firsthand knowledge of how much Philadelphia sports fans support their teams. The New York Knicks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[21,9,1104,56,63,65,64],"class_list":["post-229683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-nba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}