Amid cheers for McNabb's Philadelphia Eagles, Iverson scored 28 points and came up huge down the stretch as the 76ers edged the Los Angeles Clippers, 106-104.
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The game was tied, 101-101, before Iverson nailed a 3-pointer with 1:44 remaining. After the Clippers' Bobby Simmons countered with a three-point play 17 seconds later, Iverson capped the scoring with a pair of free throws with 1:02 remaining. Clippers star forward Elton Brand fouled out on the play after Iverson head-faked him into the air and drew contact.
"It was very difficult getting into foul trouble, but my teammates really stepped up," Brand said. "We had a five-point lead late in the fourth quarter. I thought that we were going to pull it off. It's difficult to see that we couldn't."
"If all the games are coming down to the last quarter, last minute, and last second, then obviously you want to know how to win," Iverson said. "If you know that is what is going and you can't stop it from happening, then get the win. Regardless of how it looks, I'd rather win ugly. I'll take it rather than a loss."
The Clippers committed a shot clock violation with 37 seconds to play before Philadelphia's Corliss Williamson missed a jumper and Los Angeles called timeout with 10.9 seconds left.
But Rick Brunson missed a contested jumper and Iverson grabbed the rebound and ran out the clock, sending the Wachovia Center crowd -- many sporting Eagles quarterback McNabb's No. 5 jersey -- home happy.
Brunson also missed a jumper just before the buzzer in a 92-90 loss at Milwaukee on Friday.
"My heart was pumping because my man (Brunson) took the shot," Iverson said. "I definitely didn't want my man to hit it. I tried to play good defense. He got a good look but we contested it. Fortunately, he missed."
Late in the third quarter, the fans started chanting, "E-A-G-L-E-S, Eagles!" in support of the city's NFL franchise a few hours before the Super Bowl.
"They're cheering their team on," Iverson said. "I don't know how you can feed off that, but it's good to see them (Eagles) have the support like that. If you have a franchise like the Eagles and you have the fan support the way they do, that's all you can ask for."
Simmons scored 27 points and Brand 21 for Los Angeles, which lost for the eighth time in its last nine road games and slipped to 1-2 on a nine-game road trip.
"It's not a physical thing, it's more of a mental thing," Brand said. "Late rebounds and lack of execution at times, we're losing these tough games. We feel as though we should be 3-0 on this road trip now."
In a game that featured 23 ties and 22 lead changes, Philadelphia held a 69-60 lead with 5 1/2 minutes left in the third quarter before surrendering 10 straight points. The Sixers held an 86-81 advantage with 10:38 to play but the Clippers stormed back to grab a 96-91 edge with 5:59 left.
"We had a lot of mishaps and we did a lot of things wrong during the game," Iverson said. "We had a lot of opportunities to put them away and they were able to come back on us. It showed a lot of character on our part to withstand that and keep playing basketball. We tried to put together four quarters and fortunately, we were able to do that."