James Harden carried the Sixers over the Celtics like Allen Iverson vs. the Lakers. Can he do it again?

BOSTON — Not since The Answer stepped over Tyronn Lue 22 years ago has a Sixer played so well at money time.

Allen Iverson was 25 in 2001, ascending to his professional prime, when he dropped 48 points on Kobe and Shaq and the Lakers at Game 1 of the NBA Finals in L.A. It seemed likely that the Answer might do it again, and again, and again.

James Harden is 33, far from his professional peak, but he just dropped 45 on the Celtics at Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals Monday in Boston. It was the best of his 154 playoff games. Can The Beard push the Sixers past the Celtics ... without Joel Embiid?

“He was unbelievable,” Embiid said afterward.

The series is best-of-seven, but assuming Embiid continues to watch with a sprained knee, Harden needs to be unbelievable again, and again, and again.

Can he do it? Why not?

He’s got his legs; a week off after sweeping the Nets in Round 1. He’s got his crew; that week was spent reconfiguring the offense around Harden after running it through Embiid for a season-and-a-half. He’s got his motivation: legacy and money. He hasn’t reached an NBA Finals in 11 years, and he can opt out of his contract.

He responded with a statement game if ever there was one.

“I don’t need to make a statement,” Harden said. Oh yes, he did.

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He’d been making a different statement all season. With a team full of scorers like Tyrese Maxey, Tobias Harris, and, of course, Embiid, Harden averaged just 14.5 shots per game. That was his lowest rate of fire in his 11 seasons as a starter, but he led the league with 10.7 assists.

He was told, he said, “Be a facilitator. Get Joel the basketball, and score when necessary.”

Monday night to quiet the noisy and noisome TD Garden, it was necessary. But, damn, man: 45? It’s as if he was honoring Michael Jordan’s comeback number.

“It’s not that I’m not capable of doing it. It’s that this is my role for this team [absent Embiid],” he continued. “If you want me to do this, I can do this as well. I don’t think a lot of players can do that.”

Embiid ran on his sprained right knee Tuesday for the first time in more than a week. He won’t be back any time soon.

So get ready for more Big Game James.

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Harden transformed his mindset, and therefore his game, when he arrived via trade last season. He did this at the ages of 32 and 33. Then, last week, he transformed back. That is pure genius, of both body and mind.

Still, after watching him as a Sixer, there exists no universe in which you would’ve believed that 33-year-old James Harden would score 45 points and tie his career playoff high; hit the game-winning three-point shot, his seventh, also a career playoff high; shoot 56.7% from the field (17-for-30), his most accurate playoff shooting with at least 28 attempts; and do so while beating a star-studded Celtics team, at home, without the league’s most valuable player.

He scored the winner on Al Horford, a former all-defensive team player, as well as Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and, time and again, Marcus Smart, the reigning defensive player of the year. The Celtics were built on the foundation of elite defense. Harden played Hercules and tore those foundations down like so many stable walls.

He’s hit the 40-point mark nine other times, but not since 2021. When Harden scored his other 45, against Steph Curry and the Warriors in the Western Conference Finals in 2015, he did so at home, playing next to Houston center Dwight Howard, who’d just gone to eight All-Star Games. On Monday, he played with a lineup that has yet to see a single All-Star Game. His first-half sidekick was De’Anthony Melton, the Sixers’ sixth man.

Also, in 2015, Harden was 25, the same age Iverson was in his finest hour. Again, Iverson beat Kobe and Shaq with Dikembe Mutombo, who was on his way to the Hall of Fame. No such talent wore Harden’s colors Monday.

Many folks — folks like me — continue the narrative that Harden is never in great shape, that he parties all the time, and that lifestyle has both detracted from his results in the past and will hasten his end prematurely. That leaves us astounded when he does what he so often does individually and with his teams. If he is the Charles Barkley of his generation, that’s not a horrible thing. At least he dresses more interestingly than Chuck, and with a better sense of humor; he often trolls himself on social media.

Harden’s game Monday silenced, for now, busybodies like me concerned that his quick trip to Las Vegas immediately after sweeping the Nets 10 days ago might somehow detract from his preparation for the Celtics. We’d prefer he live a monkish life between playoff sweeps.

He has silenced, for now, critics who now consider him a joke ... like those on ESPN, where host Max Kellerman looked on as two panelists brayed and hee-hawed at the prospect of Harden carrying the Sixers in such a manner.

It’s as if his devotion to fashion and facial hair delegitimized him, made him a cartoon character. Unfairly, he’s been clowned for years.

Harden’s laughing now, entering Game 2 in Boston on Wednesday.

Will he have the last laugh?

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