"Before the game, Miami coach Erik Spoelstra laid it on thick.

Oh, these 76ers were good, he said. As his Heat marched to an Eastern Conference title a year ago, it was the rag-tag group of upstarts from Philly that gave them their biggest test.

On defense, the Sixers were mirror images of his cadre of All-Stars, Spoelstra insisted — tough, quick, disciplined.

Heck, if Spoelstra was going to be honest — and after all, why shouldn't he be? — these 76ers might actually have the advantage over his dream team.

"You have two teams playing a similar style, and they have as many athletes," Spoelstra said. "They may have more than us."

And after 16 wins and some immensely impressive play through the first six weeks of action, Spoelstra's spin was easy enough to swallow for any Sixers fan wearing a thick enough pair of rose-colored glasses or willing to down a few stiff drinks along the way.

For a suddenly rejuvenated fan base — including this season's first sell-out crowd of 20,694 on hand for the arrival of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade on Friday — the illogical seemed possible.

But in the first quarter, there was no need for spin. There was Andre Iguodala's follow of a Jrue Holiday miss with a powerful dunk.

In the second quarter, the capacity crowd didn't need those rose-colored glasses either. It had Thadeus Young's pretty reverse layup that put the Sixers up by a point."