Of all the players on the floor last night, Vince Carter was the last guy who had any right to talk about having guts.
He was terrible. In the biggest game of his career… a game for which the Magic specifically acquired him… he stepped up with 3 points on 1 of 9 shooting. He got torched by anyone he was guarding, and when the Magic REALLY needed him to be solid, he made a generally boneheaded play.
I could go on trying to verbally decimate Vince Carter, but it's been done today… and it was done deliciously well by Adrian Wojnarowski.
“Why go lay down now?” Vince
Carter,
of all people, said. “Fight the fight and see what happens.”Why go lay down now? Well, Carter ought to tell everyone, because
it’s easy, because that’s all he knows how to do. Here’s the absurdity
of the Magic’s 96-92 overtime victory: Someone asked Vince Carter,
“Where did the resolve come from?”
How in the world would he know? The resolve? Well, it belonged to
someone else on the Magic, to teammates that he’s already let down in
this series. Carter tried everything to spare himself pressure of
winning Game 4, delivering as many turnovers (three) as he did points
(three). He missed eight of his nine shots, defended terribly and looked
like he had already booked a vacation to the Caribbean.
Woj kills it. He's on fire. The entire piece is so dead on that I'm jealous that I can't come close to matching its effectiveness, accuracy, and anger.
The Magic stole the game last night… despite Vince Carter's best efforts. I said last night that he was the Celtics MVP. He was single-handedly preventing the Magic from putting the C's away… even though they were ready to be knocked out.
Remember when Rasheed Wallace had his first good game in ages and he didn't want to talk about it because he didn't want to take any of the spotlight away from other guys who played well?
Yeah, Vince doesn't have that in him. The only time he grew a pair of balls last night was when he had the audacity to make it seem like he was part of the fight. It's like the guy crawling out from under a table after a bar brawl then telling all his friends how great the brawl was.
Vince nearly destroyed the Magic last night. Which I guess means he's just got some unfinished business in Game 5.
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For those who don't follow us on Twitter or Facebook, you might not have heard that I was covering the game last night for SLAM Online. Please take a moment to check out my game recap. Thanks.
Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images
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