Sixers’ biggest win since the ’01 NBA Finals validates their championship hopes

BOSTON — One by one, they filed off the court, their expressions as blank as the bullets their opponent had spent the night firing. They shook hands, bumped fists, nodded in approval — all of the customs you’d expect after a win of this magnitude. But each of these interactions was imbued with a conspicuous sternness, an unspoken adamance that nothing much has changed.

“We haven’t done anything yet,” Sixers coach Doc Rivers said as he headed toward the locker room with a 115-103 final showing on the scoreboard.

Not yet. But, man, are they close.

This win was a big one. Bigger than any they’ve had in the current era and several of the previous ones. The last time a championship felt this close was Game 1 of the 2001 NBA Finals. That was two decades ago, before any of them fully understood what winning one would mean. Rivers was in his second year as an NBA coach. Team president Daryl Morey was working as a consultant. Joel Embiid was nine years away from picking up a basketball. A 3-2 lead in a conference semifinals may be a small step for a lot of NBA teams. For the Sixers, it was one giant leap.

The context is what matters. The magnitude of where they are is a function of where they’ve been. The last 48 hours had seen them go from losing two straight, to blowing a big second-half lead, to winning in overtime, to hitting the road en route for a pivotal Game 5 that they always seem to lose. When the Sixers took the court at TD Garden on Tuesday night, they were carrying the burden of the previous six years. In Toronto against the Raptors in 2019. In Philly against the Hawks in 2021. In Miami against the Heat last May. Here it was again. The annual reminder of how far they have to go.

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This may not have been anything, but it also wasn’t nothing. The Sixers walked onto a legendary court against a higher-seeded team as a 7½-point underdog and controlled the game from the jump. They took a 13-10 lead in the first five minutes and spent the next 43 keeping it intact. They did it with a masterful defensive game plan from their much-maligned coach. They did it with 33 points and an emphatic fourth-quarter block from their injured MVP. They did it with six three-pointers from a slumping shooting guard, and 15 huge minutes from a reserve who’d played just eight all series. And they did all of that while guided by the steady hand of a point guard who went from scoring 42 points in Game 4 to attempting eight shots in Game 5.

“We control what we can control, and tonight that’s one of the things that was our mindset,” said James Harden, whose 17 points and 10 assists barely hint at the role he played in the win. “We control our own destiny. Whether it’s Joel coming back for Game 2 or the Game 3 loss, that’s past us. We find things to get better at every day. Watching film. We communicate with each other. We go out there and try to be better for each other, and as a team that’s trying to compete for something special, that’s all you can ask for. Unselfish. We know who we are. Obviously, we have an MVP on our team, and then everybody else figures it out. Whether it’s me scoring the basketball or me facilitating or whether that’s me doing a little bit of both. Everybody just figures it out. Tonight was a prime example of that.”

Now is no time for victory laps. They know that. You expect that they would. Whatever happens in Game 6 and beyond, the Sixers have shown that they are a much different team from the disappointments of the past couple seasons. That’s a tribute first and foremost to Embiid and Harden, who produced their best combined game of the postseason in Tuesday’s win. But it’s also a tribute to the steps Morey has taken to build a functional playoff team around his superstar duo.

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They are tougher. They are stouter. They are more dynamic. You saw it in the minutes logged by Danuel House Jr., a last-minute addition to the rotation who paid huge dividends on both ends of the court. You saw it in the physicality of P.J. Tucker, as well as the nail he hammered home from the corner with 4:29 remaining. You saw it in Tyrese Maxey’s 30 points and 6 of 12 shooting from deep and in Rivers’ mishmash of defensive looks that took an early sledgehammer to the Celtics’ offensive rhythm.

Above all else, you saw it in their attitude. The construction of the team has matured. So have its individual components. With six minutes left and the Celtics still looking to make a run, Embiid sprinted the length of the court after turning the ball over and stunned Jaylen Brown with a huge block from behind to snuff out a fastbreak layup.

Embiid has always wanted to win. Right now, he is playing like a man who believes that he will.

“What we did tonight is easier said than done,” Embiid said. “But we’ve got to do it again.”

One more win, and then four more, and then the NBA Finals.

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