The Sixers landed on wrong side, but they fought against the Knicks — and officials — in an epic Game 6

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Give the other guys credit.

They wanted it. They wanted it bad. The refs may have wanted it more. But the Knicks more than deserved to win it.

Let's be clear about the phrasing, here. I'm deploying the active voice for a reason. Passive is the conventional structure, to keep the local team at the center. We do not care about the Knicks winning. We care about the Sixers losing, which is what they usually do this time of year.

Except, the Sixers did not lose. They may not have won. In fact, they did not win. The Knicks willed it, and they got it: a 118-115 win in Game 6, a 4-2 win in an epic first-round series, a conference semifinals date with the Indiana Pacers. But that was more a function of the variables outside of the Sixers control than it was the variables within it.

I'm not trying to claim moral victory here. I'm not blaming the officiating. I'm not even claiming that the Sixers were the better team.

I'm simply saying they were not losers.

The record book will say otherwise. So will the local lore. If Joel Embiid never wins the big one, this one will count the same as all the rest.

Never mind the 39 points he scored before fouling out with 11 seconds left. Never mind the 35 points per game he averaged in the first four games of the series. Never mind his greatest impact, which cannot be gleaned from a simple line score: the gravity of his presence, most acutely on the defensive end of the court, where it alters the balance of the universe.

Embiid fell short of a title, of even the conference finals, for a seventh consecutive postseason.

This one was different. It was. You saw it. The Knicks felt it. They beat a team every bit their equal.

Two years ago, that would have rung as hollow praise. But these aren't your typical Knicks. This was an opponent that was as fierce as any the Sixers have faced since the Raptors in the 2018-19 conference semifinals.

» READ MORE: Sixers season ends in 118-115 Game 6 loss to Knicks, despite Joel Embiid's 39 points

The Sixers played better than they have in any series since that last-second Game 7 loss to the eventual NBA champs. They presented as a far more serious team. Not since that Raptors series did they enter an offseason deserving a tip of the cap.

Exhibit A: The first quarter of Game 6. Down 22 points with four minutes left. The scoreboard suggested a debacle-in-the-making reminiscent of Game 7 in Boston last season. The Sixers were outscored 33-10, turning a close game into a franchise-altering embarrassment.

This time, on Thursday night, the Wells Fargo Center was bonkers by half time. Buddy Hield — out of the rotation, lost in space — drained five threes and sent the Sixers off with a lead. From there, it was a game, a series, an epic, just like the first five games of the series.

Embiid owned the second half. Played about as flawlessly as you could envision. He has no backup, nobody even close. In the end, that was the difference in the series.

It is a problem without an obvious solution. The best hope is next month's draft, where the Sixers must decide if any of a swath of available collegiate big man can be an immediate defensive presence. Would Baylor's Yves Missi have altered an additional shot or two? Grabbed a few more defensive rebounds? Judging by the last eight free agent markets, these are questions that Daryl Morey will need to seriously consider.

But, then, they are questions for another day. There is a more important point.

The Sixers have given us something they haven't in several years. They've given us some comfort in defeat. They given us reason to return to our seats for Act III.

"I mean it sucks to lose," Embiid said. "The goal is to win a championship. Anytime that don't happen, that's all I care about. I don't care if I got to the second round, it does not mean anything to me. We just didn't accomplish what we wanted to. The thing is we believe in ourselves so much that we believed that we actually could've won it. But everything didn't go off the way we wanted to. A lot of different circumstances. But, it's also exciting to look at the future. To look at what's in front of you, but it's also easier said than done. Got to be better as basketball players. I got to be better, starting with myself. You know the whole series I could've played better. Maybe if I was better, we would've won it. That's on me, that's why we lost. Just got to find a way to get better as basketball players, as a person, as a leader, and come back and hope that everything else aligns."

As conspicuous as Embiid's absence was on the defensive end when he was on the bench, there are ancillary ways to overcome such things. Score a couple more buckets, hit a couple more shots, the open ones in particular.

Tyrese Maxey will keep getting better. We've seen enough to believe that. Add a third scorer who is more complementary than Tobias Harris. A couple of bench pieces. The formula is there.

» READ MORE: Sixers don't need to become more like the Knicks. They need one big thing.

There are no moral victories in May. Not in the NBA. Not in a seven-game series. There is only emptiness and a total crash of brain chemicals.

The end was fitting, in that way. A game that began with a 22-point Sixers deficit ended as the entire series seemingly has: on the last possession, in the last seconds. Hield missed a desperation three-pointer after a Sixers inbound with 3.7 seconds left. Josh Hart hit the critical shot, a 26-footer with 25.1 seconds left to break a 111-111 tie.

In between there was an electric performance from somebody who resembled Hield but looked nothing like the guy who entered Game 6 with two points in the series. His five three-pointers in the first half stunned the Knicks and left the Wells Fargo Center crowd chanting "BUD-DEE, BUD-DEE" as the Sixers ran to the locker room with a three-point lead and all of the momentum in the world.

I'm not usually a guy who blames the referees on behalf of the home team, but the NBA certainly didn't do anything to burnish its checkered playoff reputation with its lopsided officiating in Game 6. Nick Nurse spent much of the game waving his hands in disgust, and justifiably so.

"It was really consistent with the whole series," Nurse said. "It was very consistent with the whole series."

The boys in black-and-white were most conspicuous in the third quarter as the Knicks battled back from a 10-point deficit. Embiid was whistled for an offensive foul after spending several seconds trying to get open against significant contact from Mitchell Robinson. On another possession, Maxey was bodied hard to the court in midair on a drive and did not get a whistle. This was as egregious as it gets — Jalen Brunson has spent the entirety of the series earning trips to the foul line on far less contact.

"I don't understand why every time he goes in there that they just never — it's kind been that way, he goes in there and gets sent to the floor time and time again," Nurse said. "I mean, he shot four free throws … I just don't understand it."

» READ MORE: Joel Embiid, Philly eliminated from the playoffs in Game 6 at Wells Fargo Center

Embiid was called for his fourth foul after knocking a loose ball into Isaiah Hartenstein's face and then making contact with his face.

Maxey finally got a call with 5:20 left in the fourth quarter, muscling in a transition layup and drawing the foul to cut the Knicks' lead to 101-98. He got another with 34.9 seconds left, getting a whistle and a goaltend to tie the game at 111-111.

That said, the Knicks deserved it. They more than deserved it.

Their opponent deserved it only slightly less.