Holiday boosts 76ers over Raptors

TORONTO - Jrue Holiday treats words as if they're endangered.

The 76ers rookie point guard says little, punctuating his abrupt sentences with a shrug as if this entire thing - the game of basketball - isn't as complicated as the questions might imply.

This season, Holiday's play has been at times mature and promising, at others youthful and overmatched.

But during yesterday's 114-101 victory over the Toronto Raptors, which snapped a five-game losing streak for the Sixers, Holiday looked much more the former than the latter.

"I think the team needs somebody else to step up," Holiday said. "And I'm out there, so why not me?"

The Sixers, who got a career-high 32 points from Thaddeus Young, improved to 23-39. The Raptors, paced by Jarrett Jack's 20 points, dropped to 32-29.

Yesterday, for all of Holiday's forehead-slapping turnovers - and there were four of them - he countered with at least three or four head-nodding plays.

Not a bad ratio.

The most noticeable of Holiday's mistakes came with 6 minutes, 32 seconds left in the game and the Raptors trying desperately to cut into the Sixers' double-digit lead. Holiday's mistake was a backcourt faux pas: heroically attempting to be a one-man press breaker against three defenders. The ball, knocked loose from Holiday, was scooped up by Jack and immediately dished to teammate Jose Calderon, whose three-pointer made the score 94-87.

Gulp.

Sixers coach Eddie Jordan immediately called a time-out and looked at Holiday as if the rookie had crashed his car.

In the three minutes of game time that followed, Holiday almost single-handedly buried the Raptors: first a baseline lay-in, then a three from the left wing, and then a creative drive to the hoop.

"After he made the turnover at half-court, he knew he made a bad play," Jordan said. "So he stepped up and cleared his head and he attacked when he had to."

The last of this trio of buckets, which Holiday scored by faking the use of a screen to his left and instead driving hard at the right block and finishing with his left hand, pushed the Sixers' lead to 107-94 with 2:34 left and sent a good number of fans heading for the Air Canada Centre's exits.

"He's doing a good job of understanding his game within the NBA game," said Sixers swingman Andre Iguodala, who had 16 points and 10 assists. "He had a problem with coming down and taking a shot with his toes on the line with 20 seconds on the shot clock. I think he has a great understanding about that and he's really changed that up from shooting those shots to shooting the open shot after a few passes and getting the whole team within the offense."

Holiday scored 21 points on 8-for-12 shooting from the field (3-for-4 shooting from three-point range) and collected seven rebounds and six assists.

"Rookie playing like that down the stretch?" said Elton Brand, who had 12 points and nine rebounds for the Sixers. "Big jumper after jumper, got to the lane and got a layup, hit Thad for another three. For him to bounce back like that, it's good for his confidence and good for us as a team."

Does Holiday, now 62 games into his NBA career, think he has fully adjusted to the NBA game?

"I think I've been past that for a minute," Holiday said.