Jodie Meeks

It wasn't just recently that 76ers guard Jodie Meeks caught coach Doug Collins by surprise. It was long before Saturday's impressive, 26-point, seven three-pointer effort in a 109-91 win over the Charlotte Bobcats that Collins thought Meeks could help his team. "He really caught me by surprise in Orlando [in the rookie summer league in July]," Collins said. "He was great this summer. He really gave us a burst of energy every time he played. " That, however, didn't help him in the early part of the season, as Meeks was deactivated for the first six games of the season.

LOS ANGELES - Sometimes when they leave a team and land somewhere else, NBA players don't speak fondly about their old club. Not so with Jodie Meeks, now a backup guard with the Los Angeles Lakers. Meeks spent almost three seasons in Philadelphia and started 114 games before the 76ers allowed him to walk as a free agent last summer. Meeks wanted to stay in Philadelphia, but he knew that the Sixers wanted to free up more playing time for Evan Turner, the second overall pick in the 2010 draft.

Jodie Meeks, starting in place of injured Andre Iguodala, scored a career-high 31 points on Tuesday to lead the 76ers to a 103-85 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers at the Wells Fargo Center. The Sixers (28-22) never trailed in the second half and with the victory they regained first place in the Atlantic Division over Idle Boston (27-22). Anthony Parker led Cleveland (17-30) with 14 points. Playing their second game in a row without Iguodala (knee), the Sixers rebounded from a horrible and disjointed performance Sunday at San Antonio to record an easy victory.

JRUE HOLIDAY The 20-year-old point guard has held his own during his first year as a starter and needs to keep it up. His stretch run includes facing formidable guards like Atlanta's Kirk Hinrich, Miami's Dwyane Wade, Chicago's Derrick Rose, New Jersey's Deron Williams, Milwaukee's Brandon Jennings, Boston's Rajon Rondo and Orlando's Jameer Nelson. JODIE MEEKS With Jason Kapono exiled to the Land of Oz, Meeks is the Sixers' lone reliable deep-shot threat. The team's turnaround began when Meeks was inserted into the starting lineup.

LOS ANGELES - The 76ers rang in the New Year in the same place they have in previous years: inside the Staples Center. On Friday night, the Sixers missed a handful of end-of-game jump shots in losing to the Los Angeles Lakers, 102-98. "I thought we had [two] clean looks there. . . . I didn't call a time-out because I felt we had the ball and we could just push it and they couldn't get a time-out to maybe make it tough for us to get the ball in," Sixers coach Doug Collins said afterward.

The 76ers are dispersing for the holiday. After Wednesday night's 84-80 loss to the Boston Celtics, the players were allowed to fly to their respective homes for the Christmas holiday and will reconvene in Denver for their game against the Nuggets on Sunday. Most players hopped an early flight out of Philadelphia on Thursday morning. In past seasons, the Sixers have often held practices on the days before Christmas, but Sixers coach Doug Collins decided to give his players a quick breather before they continue on their holiday road trip.

After going to the free-throw line a league-low 18.2 times per game - just shy of the league-low record of 18 by the 2005-06 Phoenix Suns - the Sixers have lived on the line in this series. The Sixers have gone to the line 30 times or more in three of their four playoff games against Chicago. So what gives? Coach Doug Collins said part of the reason for the difference has been the insertion of Evan Turner into the starting lineup. "We're playing a different team," Collins said.

Straining to work out the kinks in an offense coach Mike D'Antoni compared to dancing with two left feet, Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers even struggled to put away the Washington Wizards. A night after joking about wanting to face the Washington Generals, the Harlem Globetrotters' longtime foils, Bryant scored 30 points, and ex-Sixer Jodie Meeks added 24, helping the Lakers beat the Wizards, 102-96, on Friday to end a four-game losing streak. Slowed by foul trouble, Dwight Howard finished with 12 points and 14 rebounds, and the Lakers improved to 10-14.

In an effort to get another shooter on the floor, 76ers coach Doug Collins decided this week to insert guard Jodie Meeks into the starting lineup. On Saturday at the Well Fargo Center, the move paid off. Meeks got the Sixers headed toward a 109-91 victory over the Charlotte Bobcats by scoring 20 of his game-high 26 points in the first period. After making six of seven three-point attempts during the first 12 minutes, Meeks went on to also finish with personal highs in points, field goal attempts (15)

Saturday was the type of game mediocre teams usually lose. Lately, the 76ers are way above mediocre. Friday, the team posted its best win of the season, a 77-71 dogfight over the league-best San Antonio Spurs. Immediately following the game, the Sixers flew to Minnesota for Saturday night's game with the lowly Timberwolves. A victory over a team that has accumulated just 13 wins shouldn't seem like a big deal, but in the grand scheme of things, it is. A letdown after such a big win is certainly something we've seen, maybe even expected, from the Sixers in the past.

The loss of shooting guard Jason Richardson for maybe a year amplifies the problems the 76ers have had at this position for more than half a decade. Since dealing Allen Iverson to Denver in December 2006, the Sixers have used, among others, Kevin Ollie, Rodney Carney, Willie Green, and Jodie Meeks at shooting guard, sometimes farcically. They've tried Andre Iguodala - clearly out of position - for stretches. Undersize Lou Williams spent time there, and for the better part of the last two seasons fans cringed watching Meeks.

LOS ANGELES - Sometimes when they leave a team and land somewhere else, NBA players don't speak fondly about their old club. Not so with Jodie Meeks, now a backup guard with the Los Angeles Lakers. Meeks spent almost three seasons in Philadelphia and started 114 games before the 76ers allowed him to walk as a free agent last summer. Meeks wanted to stay in Philadelphia, but he knew that the Sixers wanted to free up more playing time for Evan Turner, the second overall pick in the 2010 draft.

Straining to work out the kinks in an offense coach Mike D'Antoni compared to dancing with two left feet, Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers even struggled to put away the Washington Wizards. A night after joking about wanting to face the Washington Generals, the Harlem Globetrotters' longtime foils, Bryant scored 30 points, and ex-Sixer Jodie Meeks added 24, helping the Lakers beat the Wizards, 102-96, on Friday to end a four-game losing streak. Slowed by foul trouble, Dwight Howard finished with 12 points and 14 rebounds, and the Lakers improved to 10-14.

Doug Collins couldn't have asked for a more fitting backdrop. Moments after watching his 76ers play a spirited scrimmage at St. Joseph's Hagan Arena that required an overtime period to settle, the coach discussed a favorite topic: spacing on the floor for his shooters. Behind him, newly acquired sharpshooter Jason Richardson launched three-pointers, getting in some extra practice at training camp. One key to the offense is having a big man capable of commanding a double team, drawing would-be perimeter defenders away from good shooters who are capable of making opponents pay. In center Andrew Bynum, the Sixers feel they have that covered.

Before the 76ers drastically reshaped their roster this summer, the continuously evolving relationship between coach Doug Collins and swingman Evan Turner figured again to be one of the tinderbox issues for the team. Even without Jodie Meeks around to mildly tempt Collins to send the No. 2 pick in the 2010 draft to the bench, had the Sixers roster for the 2012-13 season come back with the subtraction of Lou Williams and the addition of Kwame Brown as the biggest changes, the nitpicking over the sometimes-combustible Collins-Turner relationship would still bubble close to the surface.

In the quiet of the postgame dressing room, Doug Collins told the players to take a good look and remember where they were, who they are, and what they have done together. He has been around long enough to recognize when a moment of passage arrives, and for the players too young to know the difference, he pointed it out. "Teams are never the same from one year to the next," Collins said. "And we'll never be together again like this. " It is true in every locker room, but perhaps more true with the 76ers this season than with most.

After going to the free-throw line a league-low 18.2 times per game - just shy of the league-low record of 18 by the 2005-06 Phoenix Suns - the Sixers have lived on the line in this series. The Sixers have gone to the line 30 times or more in three of their four playoff games against Chicago. So what gives? Coach Doug Collins said part of the reason for the difference has been the insertion of Evan Turner into the starting lineup. "We're playing a different team," Collins said.

CHICAGO - The 76ers got two points from their starting shooting guard in Saturday's 103-91 loss to the Chicago Bulls in Game 1. After a dismal seven minutes and 29 seconds of play in the first quarter that included a miss on a wide-open jump shot, a bad turnover, and an even-worse foul of a jump shooter, coach Doug Collins pulled Jodie Meeks and kept him on the bench for most of the remainder of the game. Evan Turner took most of the minutes, and Collins said after the game that his team needs the type of playmaking ability that Turner possesses.

CHICAGO - The 76ers got two points from their starting shooting guard in Saturday's 103-91 loss to the Chicago Bulls in Game 1. After a dismal 7 minutes and 29 seconds of play in the first quarter that included a miss on a wide-open jump shot, a bad turnover and an even-worse foul of a jump shooter, coach Doug Collins pulled Jodie Meeks and kept him on the bench for most of the remainder of the game. Evan Turner took most of the minutes and coach Doug Collins said after the game that his team needs the type of playmaking ability that Turner possesses.

The return of Jodie Meeks to the starting backcourt for the stretch run might not have been the big move that 76ers fans were waiting for. Many of them still want to find out what the team has in Evan Turner, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2010 draft. But as the Sixers try to lock down the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference over the remaining four games, don't expect coach Doug Collins to tinker much with the lineup. Going into the weekend, the Sixers (32-30), who play at hot Indiana (41-22)