After much consternation over Knicks fans infiltrating and debasing the Wells Fargo Center for Games 3 and 4 of this first-round playoff series, some good news to share.

Sixers ownership – Josh Harris, David Blitzer, and David Adelman – alongside Fanatics CEO and former co-owner Michael Rubin, are teaming up to purchase and hand out more than 2,000 Game 6 tickets to first responders, healthcare professionals, community groups, and other local organizations. This will ensure a measurable tipping of the scales, making sure a few thousand of our people are in the building and limiting the inventory for unpleasant Knicks fans to purchase on the resale market.

But wait, there’s more –

We’re told that Bricken for Chicken, which could be the greatest promotion in the world, is going to be extended for the entire game. That means that if the Knicks clank a few off the back iron in the 1st quarter – BAM, chicken nuggets. A quick check of the chicken counter at Sixers.com confirms that 859,928 nuggs have been awarded, so if God wills it, we’ll break a million.

So listen, this is obviously a good thing. A lot of folks were unhappy with the ticket situation, which was more of a supply and demand thing than anything else. We’ve gone over that a few times already. There’s a lot of energy for the Knicks, and since the get-in prices are cheaper in Philly than New York, hordes of those rat bastards are scooping up inventory and traveling south to see their team, paying less than they would for their home games at Madison Square Garden.

And of course, buying 2,000 tickets doesn’t solve the problem of Sixers season ticket holders cashing in on their lack of enthusiasm. The reality of the situation is that you’ve got a seven seed down 3 games to 2 and Joel Embiid has a bad wheel, Bell’s Palsy, and a migraine. Nick Nurse injured his hand. There’s concern over whether or not the Sixers can come back and win this thing, but they battled their asses off in Game 5 to keep it alive, so are we throwing in the towel, or getting behind the team?

For a little bit of background, the Sixers used to have the largest season ticket holder base in the NBA. That number actually shrunk this year, because it was explained to us that there was a larger demand for group and individual tickets. So they shifted those numbers a bit and lowered STH inventory while adding more of the latter.

When the playoffs come around, the Sixers do a presale where STH get the first crack, then you go through preferred lists before the remaining inventory is released to the general public. That’s how most teams do it. You can indeed limit purchases to certain zip codes, but that’s hard to do in a situation like this one, where there’s a ton of overlap between the New York and Philadelphia markets. If, for instance, the Sixers were playing the Bucks, you could easily geofence purchases to this region, but since NY is right up the street, it’s harder to keep their fans out.