Following stunning Game 5 victory, Sixers must mentally regroup for another must-win

Nick Nurse allows himself until midnight to celebrate, to think about, to stew about the 76ers’ just-completed game.

“And then I move on,” Nurse recently said, “and get ready for the next one.”

Nurse vocalized that approach following the Sixers’ crushing loss in Game 2 of what has become an epic first-round series, when the New York Knicks erased a five-point deficit in the final 27.4 seconds (with the help of multiple officiating blunders, the Last Two Minute Report later revealed) to win a stunner at Madison Square Garden. But what about when one’s team has delivered the improbable overtime blow — thanks to Tyrese Maxey’s end-of-regulation heroics in Game 5 — yet still must win the next one to keep the season alive (again), and then one more after that to advance to the next round?

That is the Sixers’ latest ride in an emotional roller coaster of a matchup that has been so dramatic, so competitive, and so thrilling that it is only fitting it will last until at least Thursday’s Game 6 at the Wells Fargo Center.

“This is what this series has become,” Nurse said Wednesday from the Sixers’ practice facility. “There’s a lot of work to do. … [Game 5 is] over, and the series is still going. And everybody knows how hard each possession [has been, on] both sides. I think it’s just all about business.”

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On Wednesday, that meant the Sixers did not hold a formal practice and instead focused on rest and recovery while the coaching staff watched film. Though Nurse has earned a reputation for his creative schemes and willingness to make in-game tactical adjustments, he also takes pride in maintaining the same preparation habits fostered throughout the regular season. With players, the staff has focused on the Knicks’ concepts rather than overloading them with studying “a million plays.”

“First and foremost, I want guys to be able to play free and play hard,” Nurse said.

Added veteran forward Nico Batum: “We know each other now. It’s going to be, ‘Just fight.’”

The Knicks also have been lauded for their mental resolve, which fuels their relentless playing style. It helped them pull off that Game 2 flurry, then rebound (literally and figuratively) in Game 4 after Joel Embiid’s 50-point outburst.

Now, though, New York is on the opposite side of an end-of-regulation collapse, shifting the series back to Philly for another closeout opportunity.

“We can’t hang our heads,” Knicks All-Star guard Jalen Brunson said. “We have to come back stronger, and be ready to go and learn from what we did.”

Maxey, meanwhile, has his own version of Nurse’s midnight rule, which he calls “debriefing.”

The 23-year-old first learned it from coach John Calipari while at Kentucky. These days, Maxey’s mother, Denyse, often helps him with that process, while his father, Tyrone, usually runs hotter following games, Tyrese said.

Yet when Maxey arrived home from New York City following Game 2 — after, according to the Last Two Minute Report, he had been fouled twice while losing the ball ahead of Donte DiVincenzo’s go-ahead three-pointer — he said his mom was “still just going in and going in, and my dad was just laying in the back of the bed and chilling.”

“I was the one calming my mom down,” Maxey recalled last week. “It was funny. I was like, ‘Mom, it’s OK. You’ve got to let it go.’ She was like, ‘You right, you right, you right.’

“She wakes up the next morning and starts talking about it, and I was like, ‘All right, Mom. That’s it. We’re not talking about it anymore.’”

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It’s safe to assume the mood in the Maxey family was drastically different following his 46-point, season-saving star turn in Game 5.

But before he even left the Garden late Tuesday, Maxey had already started to move on.

“I know this is cliché or whatever, but I’m trying to flush the game,” he said. “I know what we have to do in 48 hours. We can’t let this roll over. We have to [treat this] as a whole new game.

“Our season’s back on the line again.”