They boxed out and corralled loose balls. Two days after the Knicks outrebounded them 23-9 on the offensive glass, the Sixers held them to a 12-10 advantage in Game 2.

They got back in transition and harassed at the finish. In Game 1, the Knicks outscored them 27-11 on the fast break. In Game 2, the Sixers had a 14-10 edge.

They won the field goal percentage game, from 2-point range and deep.

Most significantly, the Sixers exploited their truest advantage. They turned the game over to their two superstars and both lived up to the name. Tyrese Maxey scored 35 points with 10 assists. Embiid had 34 and six. They were the clear victors against the Knicks’ resident — and deserving — MVP candidate. Jalen Brunson finished with 24 points and six assists on 8-of-29 shooting, thanks in large part to a herculean late-game defensive effort by Tobias Harris.

Embiid and Maxey starred in the exact moments and situations when a team most needs to rely on its horses. Late in the third quarter, the tide appeared to have shifted irrevocably. A seven-point lead at the end of the first quarter became a four-point lead at halftime which became a one-point deficit with 16 minutes to go in the game when Brunson got himself to the low block for a Brunsonian bank shot. Not long after that, three minutes into the fourth quarter, Bojan Bogdanovic came off the bench to hit a couple of threes and put the Knicks up eight. The Garden was rocking so loudly your Apple Watch wouldn’t stop buzzing with notifications of concern for your health.

The Sixers looked done. Chests heaving, legs jellied. The Knicks had somehow found another shooter to roll in off the bench. The Sixers looked as done as they do now that it is finally over.

“They just keep bringing all these guys in who can shoot the three and they are just firing them,” coach Nick Nurse said. “Like, they are not even that open sometimes and they are making them.”

Nurse pinpointed Bogdanovic’s 3s — one off-balance with a defender in his grille, the other in transition — as the difference in the game. It looked that way at the time, and would eventually bear itself out. But first came a valiant — and ultimately tragic — rally by Embiid and Maxey. The duo combined for 16 points over the game’s final eight minutes. Maxey’s 28-footer with 1 minute, 9 seconds left gave the Sixers a 100-96 lead. It grew by one more point. Then, it evaporated.

The pivotal sequence began with 27.1 seconds left. Brunson hit a 3-point shot to the cut the Sixers lead to two. The Knicks pressed the subsequent inbounds pass. Nurse tried to call timeout once before the ball went in to a double-teamed Maxey. He tried again as Maxey fought through a grab and some further contact to control the ball. The whistle never blew. Maxey ended up on the court. The ball ended up in Knicks possession.

“Unacceptable,” Embiid said. “Tyrese got fouled a couple of times. We just had the same thing happen in the game against Miami. That’s just unacceptable to put us in that situation. That’s [bleeping] unacceptable to lose a game like this, especially in the playoffs.

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