It’s no secret that things got dark recently as a Philadelphia 76ers fan. The trade deadline deal shipping Jared McCain to Oklahoma City for draft picks cast a pall over everything. Not long after, nearly every Sixers regular got injured (or suspended) to the point where Nick Nurse was throwing out “Who’s that guy again?” lineups reminiscent of the Process days.

It started to look like the 10th seed was in the Sixers’ future, with only the fact that Milwaukee was so far back meaning Philadelphia couldn’t miss the Play-In Tournament entirely. Folks seriously discussed whether the team should punt the rest of the season to improve slim lottery odds, and conversations swirled as to whether Nurse and Daryl Morey would and should still be here in the fall.

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Well, it looks like the Sixers have now crawled through the river of “stuff” and while they may not have emerged completely clean, they can at least go find Red on the beach. Joel Embiid and Paul George both returned to the lineup on Wednesday, and Philadelphia only went out and scored their most points in a game in over 50 years. George said the time off allowed his body to feel 100 percent. Embiid indicated the oblique is something he’s going to have to manage, but that he at least feels the knee issues are no longer a problem at the moment. Tyrese Maxey looks close to coming back from his pinky finger injury, using his right hand some during warmups prior to the Bulls game.

Credit to the MASH unit for holding things together while all of those guys were away. Now, with the roster rounding back into shape, the Sixers can really do some damage in the standings with nine games remaining. Entering play Thursday, Philadelphia is just one game back of Atlanta for fifth place in the Eastern Conference. Washington, Indiana and Milwaukee are all left on the schedule. If the Sixers can split their other six games, would a 6-3 final push be enough to catch the Hawks (while also leapfrogging the currently sixth-place Raptors and holding off everyone else)? Maybe? A potential first-round series against James Harden and the Cavaliers would certainly make for some tasty drama, and test the validity of Morey’s “no needle movers changed hands at the deadline” statement. I wonder if Harden thought Daryl was being truthful there.

Regardless, we have a fun closing stretch ahead of us after many of us had resigned ourselves to checking out for the remainder of the regular season. Instead of “let’s see what happens in the Play-In,” we get a chance to watch a talented group play with something on the line against some interesting opponents like Minnesota and San Antonio. Maybe things don’t quite work out and the Sixers end up in the Play-In anyway, but they’ll at least enter with some sort of cohesion built over these final two weeks.

Just when I thought I was out on these Sixers, they found a way to pull me back in.