Joel Embiid was great in Game 5, and the Sixers were great around him as they staved off elimination

BOSTON — It looked a lot like they imagined it would, once upon a time.

Joel Embiid was scoring buckets and drawing crowds.

Tyrese Maxey was zigging and zagging through the resulting alleyways.

Paul George was knocking down threes and playing ironman minutes of solid defense.

That was the vision, wasn’t it? However the series unfolds from here, Daryl Morey and Nick Nurse will always have the memories of Game 5. After an uneven first half, the Sixers played like the contender they were once supposed to be, blowing the Celtics out of TD Garden in a 113-97 win on Tuesday.

» READ MORE: Joel Embiid saves the Sixers, Quentin Grimes wakes up and other things we learned from improbable Game 5 win

What does it mean? Well, it means that the Sixers can suspend disbelief and postpone summer plans for at least another day. And it means that they have a chance to making things lightly interesting on their home court in Game 6 on Thursday. They probably can’t count on the Celtics shooting 28% from three-point range or missing nine of their 23 free throws. Boston didn’t earn itself the No. 2 seed nor three straight chances at closing out the Sixers by shooting the way it did throughout Game 5. The odds are still considerable.

That being said, the Sixers did more than just live to die another day. They were everything their bosses hoped they would be if they somehow managed to all get on the floor together. Most of all, they were entertaining. Crisp, fluid, active, downright functional.

Embiid overcame an uneven first half and looked close to his old scoring self over the game’s final two periods. In his second game back from an appendectomy, the big man finished with 33 points on 12-of-23 shooting, including 12-of-18 from two-point range.

“Give him a lot of credit,” Sixers coach Nick Nurse said. “He worked very hard to get back through this procedure that he had and he played a lot of minutes.”

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The more attention the Celtics paid to Embiid, the more Maxey thrived. The rising superstar scored 25 on 10-of-18 shooting despite hitting just 3-of-10 of his three-point attempts. George played 43 minutes and shot 4-for-9 from long range.

If this was more than just a blip, then the Celtics have at least some reason to worry. The Sixers have shown an impressive amount of toughness in this series, both quarter-to-quarter and game-to-game. Both of their victories came after ugly blowouts where many of us left them for dead. Within both of those victories, they withstood a number of significant Celtics runs. In Game 5, the Celtics led by as many as 13 before the Sixers roared back, outscoring them 35-29 in the third quarter and 28-11 in the fourth.

The challenge now is to do it again. The Sixers have been mighty impressive in three of the five games of this series, two of them wins, one of them a close loss in Game 3.

“We can’t have any more lapses,” Nurse said.

They more than earned the right to give it a go.