On a night the Philadelphia 76ers reached 50 wins for the first time in 11 years, they honored the leader of their last 50-win club.
The 76ers became the first Eastern Conference team with 50 wins this season as they retired Charles Barkley's No. 34 and rode Allen Iverson's near triple-double to a 102-89 victory over the woeful Golden State Warriors.
"That's great because I've never been on a team in the NBA that won 50 games," Iverson said. "It's great. It all comes together. Everything that happened with Charles, winning the game, it being our 50th win, it was just a great night."
"It's a tremendous accomplishment," 76ers coach Larry Brown said. "Now, hopefully we'll get a little confidence from this game. It is an accomplishment when you consider four or five years ago we won 21 or 22, then 31."
With just their second win in eight games, Philadelphia improved to 50-22, one game behind San Antonio for the best record in the NBA. The 76ers surpassed last season's win total and reached 50 wins for the first time since the 1989-90 campaign.
That team won the Atlantic Division title and was powered by Barkley, who spent the first eight years of his 16-year career with the Sixers and in 1996 was named one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players.
Before a sellout crowd of 20,958 at the First Union Center, Barkley was honored in a halftime ceremony that included many family members, former coaches and teammates. He was brought to tears by a standing ovation and repeated his desire to enter the Basketball Hall of Fame as a Sixer before a banner bearing his No. 34 was hoisted to the rafters.
"It was especially nice with Charles here," Brown said. "The ceremony was phenomenal, seeing his number go up. He meant a lot to this franchise and this league. I personally admire the hell out of him. I thought it was really nicely done."
The prolonged ceremony seemed to spark the Sixers, who have had their troubles in the third quarter of late but instead turned a five-point halftime lead into a 77-61 advantage.
Iverson scored 17 in the period, just two shy of Golden State's total. He finished with 35 points, a career-high 11 rebounds and nine assists, just missing his first career triple-double.
"I really wanted it because I never did it before. To have a triple double, that's a great all-around game. And on a night like this when you have one of the greatest players to ever play the game, the whole all-around game, and he gets his jersey retired, it was something I wanted to look back on. It was a great night, my mom got to see Charles get his jersey retired, I got a chance to see it. It was something special, something I'll cherish for the rest of my life."
Tyrone Hill had a season-high 21 points and 14 rebounds for the Sixers, who went 16-12 against the powerful Western Conference this season. Philadelphia has won its last six meetings with Golden State.
Hill has a personal memory of playing against Barkley.
"I remember when I was a rookie and we played them at Golden State," he said. "He said to me `Rookie, you keep playing hard like you've been playing and you'll be in the league a long time.' He knows all about work ethic."
Antawn Jamison scored 32 points for the Warriors, who have lost seven in a row on the road and 22 of 24 overall since the All-Star break.
The Sixers never trailed after using a 7-0 spurt to open a 9-2 lead. They led 23-19 after one quarter and by 10 points in the second period before settling for a 47-42 halftime lead.
The ceremony for Barkley lasted 30 minutes, more than twice as long as a normal halftime, which did not bode well for the Sixers. In their last six losses, they had managed just 102 points in the third quarter.
A 3-pointer by Jamison pulled Golden State within 54-52 with 7:36 left before Philadelphia rattled off 14 consecutive points. Iverson had two 3-pointers and Hill and George Lynch had two baskets each during the spurt, which gave the Sixers a 68-52 advantage with 3:28 remaining.
"Iverson just took over," Warriors coach Dave Cowens said. "We went down by 14 and he made two 3-pointers. Of the 14 points, he accounted for six of them. Great players step up when they have to and that's what he did tonight. That's when the game got away."
"We knew that we couldn't let then stay in the game and gain some confidence," Hill said. "So, we stepped it up defensively and we got some easy baskets and got some easy looks."
Philadelphia led 77-61 entering the fourth quarter and opened its largest lead at 92-71 on a basket by Jumaine Jones with 6:25 to go.
