Some franchises in the NBA have fan bases that travel well and show out during road games. One of those teams is the New York Knicks. Throughout the season, their star point guard Jalen Brunson was serenaded with MVP chants even away from Madison Square Garden.
Miami, Charlotte, Washington D.C. and Orlando are usually overrun with Knicks fans during regular season games. They also travel very well to Philadelphia, which is the city where three of their core players played collegiately at Villanova.
However, the regular season is a totally different monster than the NBA Playoffs. Normally during the postseason tickets are tough to find as arenas are packed to the gills with fans cheering on the home team.
Alas, that was not the case in Game 3 for the Philadelphia 76ers. In their first home game against the Knicks in their first-round series, the Wells Fargo Center was infiltrated by waves of fans wearing orange and blue.
Courtside were a few Knicks legends, such as John Starks, who have gone viral for celebrating games at MSG. While the 76ers had fans at the game, it certainly wasn’t as lopsided as you would expect it to be for a playoff game.
At halftime of Game 3, former NBA star turned analyst Charles Barkley shared how he felt about the Knicks fans overtaking Wells Fargo Arena. It was something that didn’t sit well with Barkley, as he called out the fans of one of his former teams for it happening.
“I’m disgusted at all those Knicks fans there… We’re the Philadelphia 76ers – You can have them people in your building making all that noise,” Barkley said during the American Express Halftime Show on TNT, via Josh Reynolds on X.
Barkley spent the first eight seasons of his Hall of Fame career in the NBA with the 76ers. He knows how passionate of a fan base the franchise has and was disappointed with how often it sounded like the Knicks were the home game.
The circumstances with New York visiting are a little different as Philadelphia basketball fans love Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo from their time with Villanova. But Barkley makes a good point that your home arena, especially during the NBA playoffs, should never sound like you are on the road.
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