Carter does in Jazz with three pointer
Almost inside of the first minute of the first quarter, New Jersey’s Vince Carter was hit with two fouls and had to take a seat. How the Utah Jazz wish he would have stayed there. Carter drained a 3-pointer from well behind the line as time expired to upend the Jazz.
Carter was too much for any of the Jazzmen who tried to contain him; Andrei Kirilenko, Derek Fisher and Matt Harpring couldn’t contain the high flyer, who would finish with 33 points, and rookie Paul Millsap fouled out after guarding Carter for much of second half.
USU graduate Phil Johnson, who took over for a flu-stricken Jerry Sloan as Jazz head coach, said, “It’s tough. Those are tough games. You can look at all those we’ve lost [at the buzzer], but we’ve won an awful lot of games, particularly early in the year. Maybe it’s evening out on us.”
“It’s a great feeling,” Carter said after sucking the life out of the Energy Solutions Arena. “The basketball gods had to shine on us sometime.”
Utah enjoyed a 44-21 rebounding edge over New Jersey even without injured power forward Carlos Boozer, but turned the ball over 20 times and couldn’t contain Carter in the second half. Carter became just the latest all-star shooting guard to personally slay the Jazz after Kobe Bryant, Ray Allen and Gilbert Arenas also enjoyed career nights against Utah earlier this year.
Jason Kidd had a double-double with 22 points and 10 assists in his matchup with Deron Williams at the point. Williams had 25 points and five assists. Kidd’s backup, Marcus Williams, also scored well against Utah in limited minutes, finishing with 12 points.
“You know, games have been funny. We’ve lost three games in a row at the buzzer, and now our last game on the road against a talented team in Utah that we win,” Kidd said.
Carter gave credit to center Mikki Moore for freeing him up to nail the buzzer-beater.
“I was trying to give myself an alley way – just to get good vision and a sight-line to the rim. Moore set a great screen and got me free. I didn’t realize how far it was. I was mostly just trying to set my feet and follow through and hope for the best.”
Mehmet Okur scored 18 points to lead the Jazz and also pulled down 11 rebounds. Millsap had a great game with 16 points and a team-leading 12 boards. Fisher scored 17 points.