You can’t understate what a win in Game 7 would mean for the Sixers

When your head and your heart often conflict on the outcome of a game involving one of your teams, your head is usually more realistic or pessimistic while your heart is the more optimistic part of your body. For most Sixers fans, it’s the opposite entering Saturday night’s Game 7 in Boston in a first-round series that has gone on much longer than anyone would have expected.

Philadelphia sports teams have lost seven consecutive Game 7s. That streak is eight if you include the winner-take-all Game 5 that the Phillies lost in the 2011 NLDS. That’s right, a Philadelphia sports team has not won a Game 7 since the Flyers eliminated the Sabres in the spring of 2011. The Sixers are responsible for four of the seven Game 7 losses in a streak that has spanned 15 years for the city.

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Two of the four recent losses for the Sixers in Game 7s came at the same building they’re about to play another one in. What’s even more symbolic is the timing of those two losses to the Celtics in Game 7s on the road. The first one came in 2012. Philly was a pesky eight seed that was giving a veteran Celtics group all they could handle in the second round. The Celtics won a low-scoring 85-75 game and advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals. It felt like the absolute apex of what those Sixers teams could achieve. Philly capitalized on Derrick Rose’s injury in the first round to eliminate the Bulls and then scratched and clawed for as long as it could against Boston but simply wasn’t talented enough to beat a Celtics team that had won the East in 2008 and 2010. Heck, even if the Sixers had pulled it out in Boston, they would have been an even bigger underdog against Miami in the Eastern Conference Finals, as the Heat went on to win the NBA Championship in 2012.

That game was the final one Andre Iguodala played as a Sixer. Iggy was a part of the package in the four-team trade with the Sixers, Lakers, Magic and Nuggets that sent Andrew Bynum across the country from LA to Philly while Iguodala landed in Denver. After Bynum never played a game in Philadelphia, Sam Hinkie came in to blow things up and start The Process.