His head bowed, his shoulders slumped, his hands shielding the glare from the camera lights circled above him, Joel Embiid sat at his locker and ripped the officiating and said it didn’t matter anyway because the Sixers were going to win the series.

Other than that, it was a ho-hum ending to a ho-hum night.

“We’re going to win this series,” Embiid said after the Sixers watched a five-point lead dissolve in a wild 30 seconds that were equal parts controversial and devastating. “We’re going to win this. We know what we have to fix. We did a better job today, so we’re going to fix it. We’re the better team, so we’re going to keep fighting.”

Knicks 104, Sixers 101.

Knicks 2, Sixers 0.

Forget the Process. The next couple of days will be the Processing.

They fought. Give them that. Give them all of it. Were the Sixers better in Game 2? Are they better overall? Even if they are, do they really have the wherewithal to pull off the impossible? To win four of five games in a playoff environment? Against an opponent that has the motor of a rabid squirrel and the endurance of a zombie?

Just because the big man says so doesn’t make it true.

But they fought. He fought. They lost the battle, and suffered a huge setback in the war. When they walk into the Wells Fargo Center for Game 3 on Thursday night, they should do so with heads held high.

It’s rare to be able to say that after watching a team blow a lead it held for 2 1/2 quarters and another it held with 30 seconds left. That’s the shame of it, really. The to-do list was as long as it was precarious after a 111-104 loss in Game 1. The Sixers spent Game 2 checking off the boxes.

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