We all know the recent history when it comes to the Philadelphia 76ers come playoff time. That daunting second round has been staring at this franchise in the face, laughing unmercifully before sending the basketball team from the City of Brotherly Love back home, repeatedly short of expectations.

This last off-season, GM Daryl Morey saw the weaknesses in his team’s depth and addressed them by signing De’Anthony Melton, Daniel House Jr., Montrezl Harrell, and PJ Tucker to go along with his core. Melton has been playing very well as of late, and Tucker’s scrappiness in the playoffs of the past will be counted on if the Sixers hope to slay their dragons.

Morey was hoping that James Harden was true to his word that he would finally be healthy once again, and for the most part, that came true. This obviously was good news for the Sixers during the regular season. The team had a chance to see the future hall of famer work for an entire campaign after acquiring him late last season, and they were rewarded by Harden when he became the NBA’s assist leader.

That leaves us with the MVP hopeful Joel Embiid. He has been nothing short of outstanding this season, consistently taking over games with his scoring, his ability to get to the line, and defense, but more importantly, he’s healthy. It seems like every other postseason since Embiid has been with the Sixers, he was dealing with some sort of injury, thwarting his progress and hurting the team’s chances to compete. That isn’t the case this year, but will it make a difference?

The Sixers will kick off the opening round of the playoffs when they face off against the Nets. This is a team that they should finish off in at least five games. anything over that would be a disappointment, honestly. They are just the better team all-around and should make easy work of Brooklyn. The challenge will be in the round to follow.

The Sixers had their best regular season record-wise since the 2000-01 team, a squad that went to the Finals. This team may be better from top to bottom than that team but the competition could be more difficult blocking their path. The Sixers have had their struggles against the Celtics and the Bucks were the top seed this year. With the above mentioned moves and the overall health of the team, it will be interesting to see if the Sixers can finally get over the hump and last in a potential long series against one of those teams in the second round.

A few months ago, I was a bit down on the team. They were going through the doldrums of the winter by playing lights out one night, and laying an egg the next. They were lacking any consistency off the bench, and even more troubling were the rotations being used by Doc Rivers. Since then, we have seen the team tighten up, guys like Melton and Jalen McDaniels have stepped up and Doc’s decisions aren’t under a microscope quite as much. Getting quality minutes from the bench is huge come playoff time when your bench is already shorter, which is something that Sixers have struggled with the past few postseasons.

So we talked about Harden, the bench, and of course Embiid, but there is an X Factor that the Sixers desperately need to come through when counted on if they hope to finally reach the finals, and that’s Tobias Harris.

A few seasons ago, Harris had an incredible postseason, where at times carried the team on his back. He’s not going to have to do that this time around, but Rivers does need to have his max player provide some solid production, especially when all of the attention is on Embiid and Harden. He should have some open looks and needs to drain those chances. Being a third or even a viable fourth threat behind Maxey would make this team extremely difficult for anyone in the playoffs. To me, if Harris struggles, it only puts more pressure on the big guys who will already have game plans established to slow them down, but if he is able to come through (like he’s being paid to do), this could be a different ending to the basketball season than in recent years.

There’s no dead weight in Ben Simmons weighing them down. Embiid is healthy as is Harden. They have some depth. Get that monkey off the back, and get it done this year. Please.