Saturday, March 18, 2006

Kobe Smothered by Vince Carter in Nets Win

Written by John Mbugua
Kobe Bryant Biography & Pictures

"Vince Carter discovered the secret to preventing Kobe Bryant from making a clutch shot in the final seconds: Don't let him get the ball."

Vince Carter borderline harassed Kobe Bryant in the last few seconds, forcing Kobe to put up a clutch airball three pointer at the buzzer.

The New Jersey Nets held on for a 92-89 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.

Vince Carter limited Kobe to 24 points on 9-of-24 shooting while Carter scored 24 points on 9-of-24 shooting, and Richard Jefferson added 16 for the Nets.

"I was trying to deny him as long as possible, at least eight of the 13 seconds, just to make it a tougher shot and push him out as far as I could," Carter said. "I just wanted to keep my hands up and make it a tough shot."

"(The play) was designed to get a decent shot, but it started out wrong," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "We had an extra timeout but we didn't take it. We got the ball to Kobe wrong and eveything crumbled from there."

"They made a great read defensively," Bryant said. "They were able to switch and take the play away from us. We should've called a timeout. We'll just learn from it."

"We had our opportunity to get a stop and we couldn't," Jackson said. "Krstic was way too active for us all night."

"It started with Vince's intent to get to the paint," Frank said.

"Vince getting into the paint gave (Krstic) an oppoortunity to get a rebound."

"This is a big road trip for us," Bryant said. "We can't sulk for one game. We have to keep our heads up and move on to the next one."

Written by John Mbugua
Kobe Bryant Biography & Pictures

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