The Sixers rebounded for a Game 6 win and didn’t become the first team to lose a series after leading 3-0

TORONTO — After the Toronto Raptors defeated the 76ers in Game 5 on Monday to trail 3-2 in their first-round series, the same question was on everyone’s mind: Will the Sixers close out the Raptors or are they bound to become the first team in NBA history to blow a 3-0 lead?

Well, the Sixers delivered a resounding answer.

They defeated the Raptors, 132-97, in Game 6 on Thursday at Scotiabank Arena.

Joel Embiid finished with a game highs 33 points and three blocks to go with 10 rebounds. James Harden had 22 points and a game-high 15 assists. Tyrese Maxey added 25 points and 8 assists.

With the victory, the Sixers advanced to their fourth Eastern Conference semifinals appearance in five seasons. The fourth-seeded Sixers will face the top-seeded Miami Heat, who disposed of the Atlanta Hawks in five games. Game 1 is 7:30 p.m.Monday night at FTX Arena.

Before their convincing win, even some of the most loyal and optimistic Sixers fans had doubts about the team’s chances to closeout entering Thursday night.

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So much so that Doc Rivers’ 16-31 record in closeout games was revisited. Harden’s struggles in clutch postseason games were brought up. And so was Embiid’s tendency to attempt shots from the perimeter.

But give the Sixers credit.

They were far from a rattled bunch. They displayed calm confidence before their third attempt to end their series against the Raptors.

It all started with an unpleasant film session following Game 5.

“We didn’t get but to halftime because there was so much talking during it,” Rivers said. “But I thought that was great for us. We left, came back in the next day, and you could see us in practice. This team is serious. That’s good.”

Rivers also said that Thursday morning’s shootaround was terrible, and that he called it after 35 minutes.

“I told assistant Dave [Joerger] 15 minutes into shootaround, ‘They didn’t want to hear us anymore,’ ” he said. “They were done with coaching, and they had heard it already. They were ready to play. They were locked in. So we cut shootaround short. Know when your team is ready.”

Ready was an understatement.

The Sixers broke the game open with a 17-0 run in the third quarter and never looked back en route to the 35-point victory.

‘”No disrespect to our fans, but we did not want to come back to Wells Fargo for Game 7,” Tobias Harris said. “We wanted to end it tonight out here. That was only right. …

“Maybe we were overconfident [in Games 4 and 5], but I think we had too much slippage for what was working for us. That was why I thought we lost those other games.”

But this night was different, as the Sixers won in dominant fashion and made the losses in Games 4 and 5 obsolete.

» READ MORE: Sixers blast Toronto Raptors in Game 6 to close out first-round playoff series with 132-97 win | Analysis

“Did anyone have us winning in four before the series started?” Rivers said. “I think our guys are pretty realistic to where we are at. Win tonight, we go to Miami. ...”

Rivers does have a point.

Most prognosticators had his squad winning this series in seven games. But that changed after they stormed to a 3-0 lead. They then lost two straight games before getting a victory on Thursday.

Neither result would have been surprising. The Sixers are known for doing the opposite of what’s expected and putting fans on an emotional roller coaster.

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Earlier this season, the Sixers blew a 16-point lead in a 93-88 home loss to the undermanned Raptors on March 20. Toronto won without All-Star point guard Fred VanVleet (rest) and starting wing OG Anunoby (finger).

Early in that March game, it looked as if the Sixers would hose the undermanned Raptors.

The Sixers scored 37 first-quarter points. They took a 16-point cushion when Embiid found Maxey for a transition dunk to make it a 28-12 game. The Sixers shot 11-for-16 from the field and didn’t commit a turnover in the opening quarter.

But things fell apart afterward.

They went on to score only 51 points the rest of the way: 17 in the second quarter, 20 in the third and 14 in the fourth. They lacked pace and execution while losing to a Raptors squad that only shot 37.6%. That was definitely a low point for the Sixers.

So expectations were low the following night. The Sixers rested both Embiid and Harden on the tail end of the back-to-back, leaving Harris and Maxey with little help. So we thought.

The undermanned Sixers pulled off its biggest win of the season, beating the Heat, 113-106.

Maxey, who scored a game-high 28 points, got much-needed help from Shake Milton and Furkan Korkmaz, who scored 20 points and 18, respectively, off the bench.

But Maxey was the man of the night and the sellout crowd of 21,386 let him know it, chanting “Maxey! Maxey! Maxey!” in the final minute. Thirteen of his points came on the fourth quarter on 5-for-5 shooting, including two threes, and then for good measure, he added a crowd-pleasing block with only 21 seconds left.

This series has been no different.

Prior to the series, the expectation was the Sixers would struggle against the Raptors. Instead, they jumped to a commanding 3-0 lead. So the expectations changed and the Sixers became a lock to pull off their first series sweep since 1991. Instead, they responded by losing Games 4 and 5. That led to a prevailing thought that the series was over heading into Game 6.

After Game 3, the Sixers were, admittedly, too comfortable.

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“Now, I think [the team is] more focused, more intense, a little angry,” Green said after the Thursday morning’s shootaround.

Were their losses in Games 4 and 5 a result of overconfidence? Or was it simply what we’ve heard year after year in interviews with players and coaches, that the “closeout game is the hardest win to get?”

“Toronto is a good team,” Georges Niang said. “So you can’t sit out here and say, ‘We got overconfident, which is the reason why they won. They’re a good team. They’ve been fighting this whole year. So I wouldn’t expect anything less.

“If you watched [Game 5 of the Warriors and Denver Nuggets Wednesday night], like Steph [Curry] and Steve Kerr said, the punch-out game is the toughest game. So that’s the game we are struggling on.”

But in true Sixers fashion, they clinched the series in a dominant way after being doubted.