VINCE.
RAY.
THE LAKERS.

File 004 ended with the trophy in Allen Iverson's hands. File 005 starts where the argument gets harder. Regular-season greatness can be explained away by somebody who does not want to believe. The playoffs remove most of the excuses. Every defense knows what is coming. Every possession gets more physical. Every weakness gets hunted. In 2001, Philadelphia had to win four completely different fights.

01. FIRST, THEY HAD TO BURY INDIANA.

Before Toronto, Milwaukee or Los Angeles, there was unfinished business. Indiana had eliminated Philadelphia in each of the previous two postseasons. The Sixers had finally climbed to the No. 1 seed, but the first opponent waiting for them was the same franchise that had kept reminding them they were not ready.

Game 1 looked like the nightmare repeating itself. Philadelphia led by 18 in the second half. The offense stalled. Reggie Miller kept hanging around. With 2.9 seconds left, Miller buried the three that gave Indiana a 79–78 win. Iverson finished with only 16 points, and even he admitted afterward that the Pacers seemed to have Philadelphia's number.

The answer came three nights later. Iverson scored 45 points with nine assists in Game 2 as Philadelphia won 116–98. It was not just a scoring explosion. It was a controlled response to the traps and doubles Indiana kept sending at him.

The Sixers then went to Indianapolis and won twice — 92–87 in Game 3 and 88–85 in Game 4 — to close the series. Iverson had 33 in the clincher, while Dikembe Mutombo gave Philadelphia 16 points, 11 rebounds and five blocks.

02. TORONTO TURNED THE SERIES INTO A STAR WAR.

The second round is where the 2001 run stopped feeling like a normal playoff path. Allen Iverson and Vince Carter started trading explosions like two scorers trying to erase the other guy's last game.

Iverson had 36 points, eight rebounds and seven steals in Game 1, but Carter scored 35 and Toronto stole the opener. Iverson answered with 54 points in Game 2. Carter came back with 50 in Game 3.

That should have been enough to define a series by itself. It wasn't.

With the series tied 2–2, Iverson received the MVP trophy in Philadelphia before Game 5 and then played like he had been waiting all day to prove why. He scored 52 points on 21-of-32 shooting, hit eight threes and helped turn a pivotal game into a 121–88 blowout.

That made him only the second player at the time to score 50 or more twice in the same playoff series. Toronto refused to disappear, winning Game 6 and dragging the series back to Philadelphia for Game 7.

03. GAME 7 SHOWED A DIFFERENT KIND OF IVERSON.

The easy version of the Iverson story says scoring was the only language he spoke. Game 7 against Toronto is one of the cleanest counters to that idea.

The Raptors loaded up on him, hit him, doubled him and made sure the 50-point version of Iverson was not going to decide the game. So he changed the assignment. Iverson scored only 21 points, but delivered a career-high 16 assists.

Philadelphia survived 88–87 after Vince Carter's potential series-winning jumper missed at the horn.

That matters to the way the whole run should be remembered. The 54 and the 52 were spectacular. The 16 assists were evidence that the offense was not as simple as "Iverson shoots until somebody wins." When Toronto took away the first answer, he found another one.

04. MILWAUKEE MADE IT A SURVIVAL SERIES.

The Eastern Conference Finals did not have the clean star-versus-star marketing of Iverson and Carter, but the basketball was nastier. Milwaukee had Ray Allen, Glenn Robinson and Sam Cassell. Philadelphia had the league MVP, the Defensive Player of the Year, the Sixth Man of the Year and the Coach of the Year — but it also had a roster getting more damaged by the week.

Iverson's body was already taking the bill for everything he had asked it to do. A bruised hip and buttocks limited him badly in Game 2, when he shot 5-of-26 and scored 16. He missed Game 3 completely.

Philadelphia lost both games and suddenly trailed the series 2–1.

Iverson returned for Game 4. Philadelphia won 89–83 to even the series. Then came a one-point Game 5 win that put the Sixers one victory from the Finals.

Ray Allen made sure they would have to earn it. He hit nine threes and scored 41 in Game 6. Iverson answered with 46 points, but Milwaukee won 110–100 and forced another Game 7.

05. FORTY-FOUR POINTS TO REACH THE FINALS.

By Game 7, there was no mystery left. Philadelphia needed its superstar to be the best player on the floor, Mutombo to own the paint and everybody else to fill the gaps.

Iverson scored 44 points. Mutombo finished with 23 points, 19 rebounds and seven blocks. Aaron McKie gave Philadelphia 13 assists. Even Raja Bell — barely part of the rotation earlier in the season — gave them 10 points in nine minutes.

The Sixers won 108–91 and reached the NBA Finals for the first time since 1983.

By then Iverson had already survived Reggie Miller, Vince Carter and Ray Allen. The reward was the most dominant team in basketball.

06. THEN CAME AN 11–0 LAKERS TEAM.

The Lakers did not merely win the Western Conference. They erased it. Los Angeles entered the Finals 11–0 in the postseason after sweeping Portland, Sacramento and San Antonio.

Shaquille O'Neal was at the peak of his physical dominance. Kobe Bryant had become a full superstar. The defending champions had won 19 straight games overall going back to the regular season.

Philadelphia had played 18 playoff games just to reach Los Angeles. The Lakers had played 11.

07. FORTY-EIGHT POINTS. FIFTY-TWO MINUTES. ONE IMAGE FOREVER.

Iverson played 52 minutes in Game 1. He took 41 shots because there was no other realistic path to enough offense. He scored 48 points, added six assists and five steals, and made all nine of his free throws.

Shaq had 44 points and 20 rebounds. Kobe struggled to 15 points on 7-of-22 shooting. Philadelphia still had to survive overtime.

And then came the possession everybody remembers. Tyronn Lue had given Iverson real problems with his speed and pressure. In overtime, Iverson created the separation anyway, buried the jumper, looked down and stepped over him.

The shot made it 105–103. Philadelphia won 107–101.

08. THE LAKERS WERE STILL THE BETTER TEAM.

Turning Game 1 into mythology should not require pretending the rest of the series went differently than it did. Los Angeles adjusted. Shaq was too much inside. Kobe found his footing. The Lakers' size, talent and depth eventually overwhelmed a Philadelphia team that had already spent two straight rounds going seven games.

Los Angeles won Games 2 through 5 and finished the postseason 15–1. Shaq averaged 33.0 points and 15.8 rebounds in the Finals and won Finals MVP.

That is why the correct framing of 2001 is not that Iverson "almost beat Shaq and Kobe by himself." He didn't. Philadelphia lost in five.

The better argument is stronger because it is true: Iverson led a very specific, defense-first roster through two Game 7s, reached the Finals without a traditional co-star and produced the only loss suffered by one of the most dominant playoff teams ever.

09. THE RUN PROVED THE RESPONSIBILITY WAS REAL.

Iverson finished the 2001 postseason averaging 32.9 points, 6.1 assists and 4.7 rebounds across 22 games. He scored a playoff-leading 723 points.

Look at the road instead of just the destination. He had 45 and nine assists to answer Indiana. He had 54 and 52 against Toronto, then 16 assists in the clincher. He missed a conference-finals game because his body was beaten up, came back, scored 46 in a loss and 44 in Game 7. Then he dropped 48 on the undefeated Lakers.

The volume was enormous because the responsibility was enormous. The efficiency was not always pretty because the shots were not always pretty. Philadelphia's entire construction asked Iverson to create something when the possession had nowhere else to go.

That system had a ceiling. The Finals exposed it. But before the ceiling appeared, it carried Philadelphia farther than any Sixers team had gone in 18 years.