VINCE STEALS THE SHOW

What a game it was on a Friday night in Toronto. The hometown Raptors were up against cry baby Vince Carter and the New Jersey Nets. Whoever says the hate towards Vince Carter has died should think again, and should look at the solid evidence that was presented by the 19 800 Raptor fans at the Air Canada Centre.

The crowd was hyped up and ready to go, and so were the Raptors. And they got off to a blistering start outscoring the Nets 32-22, which was highlighted by Chris Bosh taking all of his defenders to school. With that, Yi Jianlian and Sean Williams both got two quick fouls and quick hooks.

Things continued to look good for the Raptors, especially when they only committed 6 first half turnovers. One player that was thought to give the Raptors fits was Devin Harris. That never developed in the first half. It was Jose Calderon exposing Harris with his passing and scoring touch.

The Raptors dominated the game with ease, and went into the second half with a strong 14 point, 61-47 lead.

The game at the start of the third quarter looked to be all locked all up and sealed with an 18 point lead with 8 minutes to play in the quarter. That didn’t materialize, and the Nets showed signs of life led by Vince Carter and his crowd quieting 39 points.

Just like the many Raptor losses this young season, they laid back with a double digit lead, their bench failed once again and quite miserably, and the turnovers piled up. In the end, 14 were given up, and at extremely crucial moments of the game.

The fourth was huge as the Nets trounced the Raps 35-26, and tied the game up to send it to overtime tied at 111. The two teams traded 14 point advantaged halves.

How the game got to that point was just a devastating blow.

First Jose Calderon hit a clutch three that put the Raps up by five. That looked to be the exclamation point, because Jose said so.

The Nets came right back, giving everything and more, and pulled to within two points with just seconds left to play. Vince Carter and Devin Harris (30 points) were providing all the huge shots.

With the Nets fouling, and what appeared to be an advantage for the Raptors, failed on them. Give the goat horns to Anthony Parker and his ever dwindling play, as he was sent to the line, with the Raps up by two. Parker split the shots, and the Raps lead was down to one possession with four seconds left to play at 111-108.

On the Nets possession, everyone knew Vince Carter was going to get the ball. Well he did, made some room for himself, and knocked down a huge three from way downtown. Just like he did when he first appeared in Toronto after the trade, and hit a buzzer beating three in regulation. The Raptors only 0.5 seconds to do something, but didn’t get anything out of it.

The shot Vince knocked down took the wind right out of the Raptors. Oh yeah, the guy that was covering Vince on that shot was Anthony Parker. His futile defense stunk, and why the Raptors didn’t foul on that possession is beyond me.

Overtime was an eventful five minutes, where the two teams were like boxers that traded huge knocks. When one team had the opportunity to deliver the knockout punch, they just couldn’t get it.

The Raptors ended up being down by five with seconds to go, and a desperation three from Chris Bosh was good, that cut the lead to two points. On the other side the Raptors got the foul shot miss they were looking for, and were only down by three. This time, they answered with another three, and from, guess who, Anthony Parker, but he still remained the goat.

Why, you may ask. Well, with 2 seconds still left on the clock, he didn’t guard Vince Carter tightly, and Vince was able to retrieve an inbound alley-oop reverse dunk to essentially win the game with only 0.5 seconds left, again.

This loss by the Raptors is just a killer, and they’ll have to rebound quick and put it behind them, because they face the defending champion Celtics next.

To add insult to injury, Jermaine O’Neal went down with a knee injury in the fourth quarter, which happened when he went up for a rebound. And was fouled hard by Sean Williams, as he grabbed the back of his jersey and pulled O’Neal down by the shoulder. He was able to get up and walk around, and things looked good. But something just wasn’t right, as he missed two free throws, and was out from there.

Once again, Chris Bosh had a solid night scoring 42 points, and has now scored 40 or more points in two of the last three games. For some reason the Raptors are 0-2 when Bosh scores forty points in a game.

This time around, the Raptors did get scoring help, from Andrea Bargnani who had a career high 29 points and added ten rebounds. Jose Calderon quietly put up 26 points and had 15 assists. And still, the Raptors managed to lose this game, which is just sad.

In this game you could point to the third quarter where the bench for the Raptors was on the court and let the Nets back in the game with bad offense and defense.

The Raptors bench only scored 15 points from 4 players. You can exclude Kris Humphries because he was the only player that worked hard, driving the ball at every chance he got and was able to score 9 of the 15 in only 20 minutes of work. If you compare that to what Anthony Parker did in his 42 minutes, it is night and day. Only 8 point came from Parker.

The Nets bench was way better, as one player pretty much outscored the Raptor bench. Jarvis Hayes had 14 points, and in total the Nets’ bench scored 31 points over 6 players.

The play of rookie centre Brook Lopez was very impressive as he scored 14 points with six rebounds.

The Raptors at home this season are now 2-3, and 6-6 overall.

What looked to be a laugher for the Raptors, turned into insane hysterical laughter.


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