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

BOSTON — What disgrace. What humiliation.

The Sixers had the hated Celtics right where they wanted them, leading 3-2 in the Eastern Conference semifinal. Then they stumbled in the fourth quarter of Game 6 at home, then left their hearts in Philadelphia for the franchise’s biggest Game 7 since 2001. They trailed by 28 points with more than a quarter to play. They gave up with more than three minutes in the game, down 30. Their principals sat and watched, stunned.

Joel Embiid had his chin in hand. James Harden hung his head. Doc Rivers stood, arms crossed, befuddled.

The Sixers lost, 112-88. It felt worse. The No. 3 seed, a finished product after a decade of rebuilding, a team that swept the Nets in the first round, was being clowned by a team led by Jayson Tatum, whom they traded up to pass over in the 2017 draft. Since then, Sixers president Daryl Morey has built a talent-rich club around Harden and Embiid. When they left Boston five days earlier they had a clear path to the franchise’s first title since Julius Erving, Moses Malone, and Andrew “Boston Strangler” Toney roared through Boston 40 years ago.

They were right there. This close. On Sunday, they collapsed.

“We played well all year,” Rivers said. “This loss absolutely diminishes that [for observers].”

The Sixers last summer signed 38-year-old Heat enforcer P.J. Tucker to inject toughness and backbone into a team of invertebrates. In the biggest game of Embiid’s career, and possibly the last relevant game of Harden’s, they showed up like the Tin Man before he met Oz.

Tucker endorsed Doc.

“I agree 1,000 percent. To go down like that without feeling like you gave full fight. Two disappointing games to win the series,” Tucker said. “It wasn’t enough. Just wasn’t enough. Whether physically tough, mentally tough, emotionally tough — it just wasn’t enough.”

Tatum had enough. He gave Embiid a lesson in heart and guts: 51 points, 11 rebounds, and a resounding reminder that the regular-season MVP award means little.

» READ MORE: Joel Embiid, James Harden produce lackluster performance as Sixers lose Game 7

Embiid’s the MVP. Tatum finished fourth in that voting, but it’s Tatum who is playing Jimmy Butler and the Heat on Wednesday in the conference final, not Embiid. He would have ripped their hearts out, but again, Harden and Embiid left their hearts in Philly. Now, do they dare show their faces in Philly again?

Can they, in good conscience, present themselves for the 2023-24 season, in which they will earn a combined $90 million?

Will Harden opt out of his contract for next season? Probably. “I haven’t even thought about it,” he said. But he said the “pretty solid” team could get better, and playing with Embiid was “great.” Notably, Harden did not say he wanted to come back.

Will Embiid request a trade? Maybe. He hinted on social media last year that he’d like to join Butler in Miami, and before the season began he asserted that Philly fans wanted him traded.

Can Rivers, who has won nothing since his 2008 title in Boston, survive another playoff collapse? Rivers said he believed the team progressed this season, and it has a higher ceiling. In a league where players sometimes choose their coach, Embiid said that Doc was “fantastic” this season and that he wanted to see Rivers return.

Harden said, “Our relationship is OK,” but, pointedly, he declined to endorse Rivers. In an NBA that just jettisoned recent title winners Mike Budenholzer of the Bucks and Nick Nurse of the Raptors, Doc’s almost certainly gone.

The Sixers could look very different in a few weeks.

“James, Jo, me, we’ve got to point somewhere, right?” Rivers asked.

Yes. When you get demolished, you point at the three guys making dumptrucks full of money who one day will be in the Hall of Fame. Finger-pointing comes with that territory.

Embiid, Harden, and Rivers are Sixers because another Sixers team — a tough, plucky, overachieving Sixers team — lost an identical game here, but not in an identical way.

The last time the Sixers took Boston to a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference semifinals, they at least played like they cared. They at least put forth a professional effort, cutting the lead of the Celtics’ Hall of Fame roster to three points late in the fourth quarter. That Game 7 loss eventually sent Jrue Holiday onto a superb career that includes an NBA title with the Bucks. It sent Andre Iguodala away via trade, and he won four titles with the Warriors.

They were the chief casualties of “The Process,” which begun in 2013 with the intention of eventually launching the Sixers past the second-round purgatory in which they’d they found themselves trapped for a dozen seasons.

Fast-forward a decade.

Embiid, the centerpiece of “The Process,” has won nothing. Neither has Harden, a transcendent player whom the Sixers acquired last season via trade for Ben Simmons, one of a half-dozen Process busts.

» READ MORE: Live Blog: Philly’s season ends with Game 7 blowout loss; Tatum goes off

If they continue to play with the same sort of heart they showed Sunday afternoon in Boston, they’ll never win anything. Both credited the Celtics more than they blamed themselves.

Embiid settled for fadeaway jump shots over Al Horford, who’s 36 years old but plays with more gumption than the man seven years his junior. Embiid scored just 15 points, grabbed just eight rebounds, and was utterly passive. It was the worst playoff game of his career.

And he was better than Harden.

Harden just ... settled. “Playoff James,” The Beard’s alter-ego, delivered more postseason no-shows than Axl Rose and Lauryn Hill. He finished with three field goals and five turnovers. He had been better. His aggressive play helped the Sixers win Game 1, when he matched his career playoff high with 45 points in Embiid’s absence, and Game 4, when he dropped 42 alongside Embiid, who’d come back in Game 2 from a 10-day knee-sprain absence.

Then, in Games 6 and 7, Harden shot 7-for-25, including a 3-for-11 mark on Sunday, hitting one-of-five threes. He was tentative, reluctant, scared. He hesitated to shoot once he beat his primary defender and faced defensive help. He fired four air balls.

Rivers pointed to one of the turnovers as an early turning point. Harden lost the ball driving to the basket, flailed his arms, and hit Jaylen Brown in the nose. It was ruled a flagrant foul. Brown made both free throws with cotton stuffed up his bleeding left nostril.

“After that, we never played right again,” Rivers said.

Um, no.

After that, the Celtics went on an 8-0 run and tied it at 35, but Harden’s flagrant happened with more than 8 minutes to play in the second quarter, and Harden’s jumper put the Sixers back up by 2 with 6 minutes to play in the first half. That’s five-eighths of the game. If you can’t weather something that happens three-eighths of the way into a close game, it ain’t the shots that are the problem. It’s the shooters.

Doc defended Harden: “I thought he tried to see the game. I thought he played downhill a lot. Where he passed the ball were the right decisions tonight.”

It was a hollow defense, mounted by a man who needs an ally.

Statistically, Harden was awful. Empirically, he was worse.

What humiliation.

What disgrace.