Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, and Kyle Schwarber disappeared as the Phillies blew a 3-2 NLCS lead

If that pain in your heart feels familiar, Philadelphia, that’s because you felt the same way five months ago.

In May, the Sixers blew a 3-2 lead to the Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Their best players, Joel Embiid and James Harden, were essentially absent in those losses.

Monday and Tuesday night, the Phillies blew a 3-2 lead in the National League Championship Series. Their best players, Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and Trea Turner, were essentially absent in those losses.

In Games 6 and 7 of the NLCS, Schwarber, Turner, and Harper, the team’s 1-2-3 hitters, went 1-for-20. The Phillies scored one run in Game 6, then lost the first Game 7 in franchise history, 4-2, to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

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The Phillies celebrate big hits by pantomiming the size of their, ahem, marbles. Just like the Sixers, the Phillies’ marbles weren’t quite big enough.

“Not being able to come through is devastating for me,” Harper said. “I feel like I let my team down. I feel like I let the city of Philadelphia down.”

He was talking specifically about his biggest moment, with two out and two on with a two-run deficit in the seventh inning. He just missed a 2-1, 95 mph fastball from Kevin Ginkel. It left his bat at 107 mph, and it traveled 331 feet, but it settled gently in the glove of center fielder Alek Thomas about 50 feet short of doing real damage.

“He threw the pitch I wanted,” Harper admitted, nodding and pressing his lips together as he does after his rare moments of failure.

It was Harper’s last at-bat of the season.

Turner had just done the same thing in his last chance. He finished 0-for-12 over the last three games.

“I didn’t get much to hit, and I tried to do too much,” he admitted.

Schwarber doubled Tuesday, and the trio combined for four walks, but they drove in zero runs and they scored zero runs, and they’re being paid a combined $709 million to put runs on the board. In that they failed.

If you don’t like the comparison with the Sixers then that’s probably because you don’t like the Sixers, and who can blame you: They’re pretty unlikable. Conversely, you do like the Phillies, and who doesn’t? They’re downright lovable.

They gave you a run to the World Series last year out of nowhere, then they spent a franchise-record $245 million to get back there, and they were 27 outs away, but a team that spent $119 million — less than half as much — denied them for two games in a row. Home games. Bedlam-at-the-Bank games, minus the Bedlam.

When pinch hitter Jake Cave’s fly ball to right field was caught, 45,397 crazies filed out, stunned.

Red October?

Dead October.

Nobody could believe it; not even the skipper. Not after they shook off losses Thursday and Friday in Arizona to take a 3-2 lead Saturday, coming back to the most intimidating lair in baseball.

» READ MORE: Joel Embiid, James Harden choke in a gutless showing in Boston. ‘The Process’ fails again.

“I told the club if you asked me two days ago, two weeks ago, two months ago if we would be going home tonight, I would have said, ‘No,” said Rob Thomson. “That’s how much belief I have in this club.”

Be honest. So did you.

You might love these Phillies and despise those Sixers, but when you subtract emotion from the equation you’re left with the same heartbreak, just five months apart.

It’s an ugly memory, so you’ve probably forced yourself to forget, so let’s review the specifics. In Games 6 and 7, Embiid and Harden made just 21 of 64 shots. They scored a combined 63 points. They essentially disappeared.

There are significant differences in the collapses. The Phillies didn’t blow a late lead in Game 6. They trailed all night. The Phillies didn’t roll over in Game 7. They kept it close until the final out.

The ballplayers’ numbers will look worse, because baseball is harder than basketball.

The loss will feel worse, because, unlike the Sixers, the Phillies were the higher seed. Also, unlike the Sixers, the Phillies squandered the best home-field advantage in their sport.

The main difference is that neither Harper nor Schwarber nor Turner quit. Embiid and Harden did.

Also, the Big Three of the Phillies prepared as well as possible. Embiid and Harden haven’t been in NBA shape in two years.

Finally, all of the Phillies will return next season to try it again. Harden, at the moment, has demanded a trade and reportedly is sulking in Houston, refusing to report for duty as the season opener looms Thursday in Milwaukee.

Again: beloved versus unlikable. Again: five months later, same results.

There were other reasons besides the disappearance of the Big Three. Merrill Kelly pitched better than Phillies starter Aaron Nola in Game 6 on Monday. Rookie right-hander Brandon Pfaadt, the D’backs’ top prospect, pitched better than Ranger Suárez on Tuesday. Also, when given the chances, the Diamondbacks executed offensively.

The Phillies sacrificed a batter to move a runner in the third inning, but Schwarber struck out and Turner grounded out. The Diamondbacks sacrificed a batter to move a runner in the fifth, and, after No. 1 hitter Ketel Marte struck out, No. 2 hitter Corbin Carroll drove that runner in.

The Diamondbacks did, indeed, “Embrace the Chaos,” the motto they adapted to describe their hyperactivity on the bases. In an era that spits on using an out to move a runner, the Diamondbacks led the majors with 36 sacrifice bunts, largely because, with just 166 home runs, they tied for the fewest hit by any playoff team this season. They also stole 166 bases, the most of any playoff team. They stole four Tuesday night.

It was the 2023 NLCS, but the D’backs play 1923 baseball. The Phillies did not. As normally is the case, the Phillies cannot.

Luck and fundamentals — the bad kind of both — vexed them, again. They proved that, when you subtract their home runs, they often struggle to score.

The Phillies stranded five runners between the third, fourth, and fifth innings. Four of those runners were in scoring position. A lot of money left a lot of meat on the bone all night.

Nick Castellanos, the $100 million right fielder, had runners on first and third with one out in the fourth. A respectable fly ball would have scored a run. Castellanos K’ed. He was hot for a bit in October but ended the season on an 0-for-20 skid with 10 strikeouts; there’s a reason he bats seventh, not fourth.

Schwarber, the $79 million home-run specialist, led off the fifth with a double. A ground ball to the right side would have moved him to third, with one out. Instead, Turner, the $300 million shortstop, pulled a ground ball to third base. Schwarber eventually died at second.

And, of course, Turner and Harper, the $330 million man, stranded those two runners in the seventh.

“I’ve been in those moments before,” said Harper, whose Game 5 homer at the Bank won the Phillies the National League pennant last year. He’s one of the best playoff hitters in history — just not the most recent history. “Didn’t get it done.”

You can blame Thomson, who let rookie center fielder Johan Rojas go 4-for-43 in the postseason before mercifully pinch-hitting for him in the seventh inning Tuesday, but Thomson believed Rojas’ unmatched defensive value justified the ninth spot in the lineup, and he was pretty much right about that.

» READ MORE: Rob Thomson blew it for the Phillies when he brought in rookie Orion Kerkering in Game 3 of the NLCS

You can blame Thomson for his disastrous bullpen usage of rookie Orion Kerkering in the losses of Games 3 and 4 in Phoenix, and you’d be right about that; Kerkering was in college last year and clearly was not ready for high-leverage playoff situations. But you’d better blame president Dave Dombrowski, too, because he put Kerkering on the roster and urged Thomson to use him.

You can blame Thomson for batting Alec Bohm in the cleanup spot lately, but you’d look foolish, since the Phillies got this far with Bohm hitting fourth, and he homered and scored both runs Tuesday night.

Maybe Thomson wasn’t perfect.

At least he showed up.