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This weekly pickup game has been a Philly hoops staple since 1982

The code to open the gym door didn’t work. One recent evening, the temperature sat above 80 degrees and the group outside in their gym shorts couldn’t get in the suburban high school for their weekly pickup basketball game. Try again next week?

“We don’t give up — there’s an open court somewhere,’’ one of the guys said after the group had audibled toward driving down the street to an outdoor court.

You don’t keep a pickup game going since 1982 — the year the 76ers acquired Moses Malone, if you’re counting in hoop terms — just to give up at the first locked door.