Bench players provide spark for 76ers to beat Raptors

TORONTO -- The Philadelphia 76ers were playing for the second night in a row but they made the Toronto Raptors look like the tired team on Saturday at Air Canada Centre.

Powered by a dominating second quarter in which they outscored the Raptors by 25 points, the 76ers earned a 93-83 victory over Toronto before an announced crowd of 19,800.

The win that gave the Sixers a 3-0 trip followed Friday's victory over the Boston Celtics while the Raptors had not played since Wednesday's loss at Dallas.

"I told you before the game if we were going to win this game our bench was going to have to help us because we were very tired," Sixers head coach Doug Collins said.

And that is what happened. The Sixers spread out their scoring. Thaddeus Young, Jrue Holiday and Nick Young scored 16 points each. Dorell Wright scored 15 and Spencer Hawes scored 12 with 11 rebounds.

Nick Young, who was a big factor in Philadelphia's second-quarter splurge, did his damage after coming off the bench, as did Hawes. Starter Evan Turner also had 12 rebounds to go with eight points.

"Our first unit didn't have any juice at all," Collins said. "We were down there in the first quarter. Got it to six at the end of the quarter and then our second unit was fantastic.

"Spencer, Swaggy (Nick Young) and Royal (Ivey who had eight points and five assists) and that was the difference in the game. That's what we're going to have to do. We're going to play 22 back-to-backs and so we're going to have to have depth."

Andrea Bargnani led the Raptors with 23 points while DeMar DeRozan, who was 6-for-17 from the field, scored 19. Jose Calderon had 14 points and 11 assists for Toronto while Jonas Valanciunas scored eight.

"We are searching," Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. "I thought we fixed our start in the first quarter. Our starting unit gave us an extra man. We cannot play them for 48. It started right before the first quarter and it snowballed in the second. We have not played a true 48 minutes. Give me 48 minutes and I'll be happy with that."

"The second quarter was like a picture of the game," Bargnani said. "I think we scored seven points and they scored about 30. Against a team like Philadelphia who are playing great basketball, you can't afford to do that. We played a decent game for three quarters but we cannot afford to have a quarter like that."

The Raptors, who already were playing without Kyle Lowry and Landry Fields, lost Alan Anderson to a sprained left foot late in the game. He finished with seven points.

The Raptors (1-5) made up 12 points in the third quarter to pull within seven points entering the fourth.

But Philadelphia (4-2) always seemed in control and led 81-67 after Thaddeus Young hit a jumper with six minutes to play in the game.

"We're trying to grow as a team but we're trying to win at the same time," Collins said. "So it's pretty amazing, I'm thrilled, a 3-0 road trip. New Orleans (Nov. 7) that first half, 14 turnovers and we looked like we could do nothing and found a way to win that game and played a terrific game [Friday] night in Boston and we came back in here tonight and they had all the momentum in the world. We made some key shots to keep them at bay, Dorell hit a couple and Swaggy hit one and we were able to fight through it."

The Sixers took a 19-point lead into the second half after swamping the Raptors in a 32-7 second quarter. But the Raptors put on a surge of their own in the third quarter. They pulled to within 69-62 at the end of the third when Amir Johnson put in a buzzer-beating alley-oop dunk on a pass from Calderon. The points stood after a video review by the officials.

Philadelphia spotted the Raptors six points after the first quarter and then took over the second quarter to open a 52-33 halftime lead. Young scored all of his 11 first-half points in the second quarter. Hawes led all first-half scorers with 12. Bargnani led Toronto with 11 points in the half and DeRozan had nine.

The Sixers scored the first five points of the second quarter to pull within one point and then took the lead 31-29 on Young's driving layup with 8:15 to play in the half. Young followed it up with a 3-pointer at 7:26 to play and then hit a jump shot to put the Sixers into a five-point lead at the 6:53 mark. The Sixers built on that momentum to extend the lead to 45-31 on Evan Turner's jumper with 4:39 left in the half and Holiday bumped the lead to 16 only 19 seconds later on a pull-up jumper.

"Coach started running plays and teammates started looking for me and getting me the ball," Nick Young said. "We were just knocking down shots and playing hard defense. We just brought all the energy we could and just fed off it."

"We upped the intensity a little bit," Hawes said. "And the little mistakes that we were making early, personnel mistakes, nor paying attention to tendencies, we shored that up and we got those stops. It made it a lot easier at the other end as well."

NOTES: Andrew Bynum (right knee bone bruise) continues to be inactive for the 76ers. ... The Raptors played in camouflage uniforms to honor veterans of the armed forces for Remembrance Day on Sunday. ... Linas Kleiza who has been inactive because of a family matter made his first appearance of the season for Toronto. ... Kwame Brown (left calf) and Jason Richardson (ankle) were among the 76ers injured. ... The Raptors are home to the Utah Jazz on Monday. ... The 76ers are home Monday to the Milwaukee Bucks.