BY HENRY ABBOTT

The highlights are exciting, but, like all exciting things, can sometimes distract you from what’s happening behind the scenes.

Allen Iverson is a great example. A tiny fearless artist of a player, he spent years casting spells to score over, under, and around giants. In highlights, it was the most exciting offensive attack maybe ever. There was every reason to ooh and aah. Sometimes he took 40 or more shots, once he scored 60 points. In 2001, he carried the 76ers to the Finals. 

But the highlights missed the real story: The 76ers had the 13th best offense in the league that year. All those times Iverson was knocked to the ground while making some crazy one-handed floater, he was heroically making a bad offense mediocre. Behind the scenes, the elite thing about the 76ers was the defense, which almost never made the highlights. 

Sometimes it doesn’t matter. If you just want to cheer Iverson, I get it. 

If you want to replicate the 76ers’ road to the Finals, though, you have …