Jrue Holiday has been getting praise all around lately. After teammate Jayson Tatum admitted he didn’t believe that the NBA let the Boston Celtics acquire the guard, a former Lakers coach chose to share his thoughts about the defensive guard. In fact, the 52-year-old even went as far as to bestow an incredible honor upon him, amidst the ongoing NBA Finals.
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During a recent appearance on All the Smoke, Phil Handy attempted to lift the curtain behind what makes Holiday such a great two-way player in the NBA. He stated that the Boston Celtics guard played quite a bit of one-on-one growing up which forced him to develop his game on both ends of the floor.
“He likes to play a lot of one-on-one… Think about when we were growing up. All we did was what? Play one-on-one… You played a lot of one-on-one… it puts you in a position where, not only are you working on your offensive game, you [also] had to learn how to guard people!”
Handy then went on to point out that Holiday can play on both ends of the floor, and he has always been that way. Eventually, the former Lakers coach just couldn’t help but honor him with a rather grandiose, yet fitting title.
“Jrue has always been a dude that is both sides of the ball. So you want to talk about two-way players, he is the best two-way player in the league!”
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Phil Handy’s verdict may come on a bit strong, at first. However, given the quality he has displayed consistently, no matter the stage, his words do become incredibly hard to deny. He is averaging 15.7 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 4.3 assists, along with one steal, in the finals series.
In a league where most players specialize in the skills required on one end of the floor while abandoning the thought of the other, the Celtics guard does it all at a high level. Add to that the fact that he also has a track record of being healthy enough to play the grand majority of games every season, and indeed, you arguably have the best two-way player in the NBA.
