PERHAPS SOMEWHERE way, way back in a corner of his mind, Allen Iverson might have thought he was going to the foul line to shoot two potentially franchise-altering shots.
Maybe, with 19.7 seconds left and the Sixers leading the Boston Celtics by one, Iverson considered how drastically the make-up of the 76ers might change if he missed the free throws, and the Celtics wound up sweeping their playoff series.

He wouldn't have been wrong to feel that way.

This wasn't just a playoff-saving game for the Sixers. It was bigger than that. When the Sixers walked on the court yesterday, they looked one way. Had they lost to the Celtics instead of rallying to a 108-103 victory, that would have been the last time they looked that way.

Whether Iverson acknowledged it or not, that's what was truly at stake when he stepped to the line with the Sixers clinging to a 104-103 lead against a young and hungry Boston squad.

The Sixers are a team that went from playing in the 2001 NBA Finals to winning 13 fewer regular-season games this season and struggling to even qualify for the playoffs.

The season has been a constant soap opera during which the relationship between Iverson and coach Larry Brown has unraveled to the point where it seems as bad as it was during the nuclear summer of 2000 in which Iverson was being shopped around the league.