Joel Embiid is asking 76ers fans to hold their tickets, and one Philadelphia supporter is answering with a plan aimed at the ny knicks schedule and the road crowd that could come with it. A diehard fan named Matt posted on Reddit’s r/Sixers ahead of Sunday’s Game 4, suggesting that fans buy fully refundable Amtrak tickets, then cancel the train trip shortly before the 3:30 p.m. ET tip-off.
The idea was simple and spiteful: make travel look scarcer and push prices higher for New Yorkers trying to get to Philadelphia. On Friday evening, a search of the Amtrak website found a round-trip ticket costing just shy of $300, while TickPick showed Game 3 seats as low as $159 and Game 4 seats at $170. Potential Games 5 and 7 at Madison Square Garden were listed at $500-plus, and as of Thursday night, 59 percent of TickPick tickets sold for Game 3 came from accounts linked to New York and New Jersey.
Embiid has already made the case to the home crowd in blunt terms. After the 76ers were beaten by the Knicks in the first round in 2024, he said it felt like Philadelphia was “Madison Square Garden East,” and warned fans not to sell out. “Don’t sell your tickets. This is bigger than you. We need you guys,” he said, adding that “Knicks fans travel, they buy tickets” and, if money was the issue, “I’ve got you.”
That backdrop is why Sunday matters beyond one game. The 76ers were down 2-0 in the series when the Reddit plan surfaced, and both sides are trying to use ticket sales and travel costs as part of the rivalry. The Knicks have already shown in this matchup and in last year’s first-round meeting that their fans will turn up, and Philadelphia is trying to make sure the building does not lean that way again. Matt’s post turned that fight into a practical, if unusual, next move: buy time, block demand, and leave the train home empty.
The real question is whether the people Embiid is pleading with will treat Game 4 as a one-night test of loyalty or another chance for New York to make the building feel split. In this series, the crowd is not a sideshow. It is part of the game.
