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PHILADELPHIA
VS.
INDIANA
MILWAUKEE
VS.
ORLANDO
MIAMI
VS.
CHARLOTTE
NEW YORK
VS.
TORONTO
SAN ANTONIO
VS.
MINNESOTA
L.A. LAKERS
VS.
PORTLAND
SACRAMENTO
VS.
PHOENIX
UTAH
VS.
DALLAS
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While McGrady sets the pace, Carter doesn't
By Jeffrey Denberg
Special to ESPN.com
Who'd a thunk it? Eight months after John Gabriel gave Tracy McGrady $93 million Amway dollars, that the kid who had just reached drinking age has practically eclipsed his distant cousin Vince Carter
|  | | McGrady scored 21 of his 42 points in the final period of Game 3 and has starred in the playoffs. |
A month shy of his 22nd birthday, young T-Mac has surpassed Vinsanity as the X-Gen icon of choice in the NBA's Eastern Conference.
While Carter has struggled under the white hot playoff spotlight, McGrady has thrived.
While Carter has become a whining, scowling underachiever, damaging his team in numerous ways, McGrady is laughing his way to post-season stardom, achieving a level of performance so strong that Grant Hill must already know that he does not have to come back and be the show next season. Give the Magic an inside banger when they go to camp, mix in a strong co-starring performance by Hill and you've got a team that Doc Rivers can take to the next level.
OK, each of these budding hoop geniuses finds himself down 1-2 in the opening round of the playoffs. But while Carter has bumbled and stumbled against the cloying Knicks defense, McGrady has thrived against heavily favored Milwaukee.
At an age when he should have entered the draft after a sterling four-year college career (yeah, right), McGrady is moving into Kobe country. He leads the league in post-season scoring with 36.7 a game and it is hardly a one-dimensional stat show. He also averages 45 minutes, 7.7 rebounds and 8.3 assists. On the defensive end, the 6-8 McGrady had held Glenn Robinson to 14 ppg. and .340 shooting. In fact, they are joking in Orlando that McGrady has kept "Big Dog" on such a short leash he has renamed him "Puppy Dog."
In a Game 2 loss to the Bucks, McGrady scored 20 straight Orlando points in the first half. In a Game 3 overtime victory, he scored 42, the second-youngest player in history to score at least 40 points in a playoff game. Magic Johnson put up 42 in 1980 when he was a tender 20. If McGrady scores at least 40 again Tuesday night -- and the series ends -- he will set an NBA playoff record for the most points scored in a four-game series.
Maybe the best thing about young McGrady is that he is willing to learn. He tried to force the action in Game 1 and shot Jerry Stackhouse numbers, 12 for 34. Since then he has relaxed, gone to his teammates early, allowed the flow of the game to come to him. This is not something Carter has been willing or able to do.
Carter on Sunday continued to fire blanks. He is 20 for 65, 8.3 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 18.3 ppg. against the Knicks. He started the series 5 for 22. Sunday in Game 3 when his team had a chance to take the series lead, Carter was 5 for 21, including 1 of 7 from the floor in the fourth quarter, making bad decisions when his struggling team desperately needed him to take control.
This is the guy who dazzled European players like Frederic Weis in the Olympics, but he wasn't going to get the job done against tough guys like Latrell Sprewell and Kurt Thomas.
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| Carter |
Remember when Carter said after Game 1 that "It isn't about me, man." Well, it is. If you are going to be a smirking, strutting centerpiece of your offense, you better get it done when the game is on the line. Sunday, the Knicks gave Carter room and he hung himself. As Alvin Williams noted, "they didn't double right off the bat like they were. He was trying his best to make plays for the team and himself [and] he had more one-on-one opportunities to go to the basket, which I think he did."
Lenny Wilkens has coached any number of head-strong young players -- Gus Williams, Dennis Johnson, Ron Harper, et al. He puts this into some perspective. "I thought on some of his shots, he struggled," Wilkens said of Carter. "Vince is a great player and we know he can make shots but when he's double-teamed and he passes the ball, he has to move more."
But Carter had his shots, driving repeatedly and in the end he drove the Raptors right out of it. He forced his way to the hoop on two successive late possessions, ignoring Antonio Davis, who was shooting well, and taking it all by himself into the teeth of a swarming defense. He got nothing. "Just trying to make something happen," he said later. The crowd in Air Canada Centre is getting hip to all this. When Vince the Prince bricked a couple of free throws, the fans booed.
|
“ |
What
Tracy has done is unbelievable. People wondered
how Tracy got such a big contract [last] summer
for a guy so young. It's not what he did for us in
the regular season. It's what he's doing in the
playoffs. That's when the great players make their
living. You can't dispute it now. He's a great player
getting better. ” |
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— Darrell Armstrong |
Maybe Carter was hypersensitive to criticism last year when he passed off to Dee Brown instead of shooting a potential game-winner against the Knicks. Maybe, he needs to step back and find some balance as his younger cousin and one-time second banana is doing.
"What Tracy has done is unbelievable," Orlando team captain and point guard Darrell Armstrong said. "People wondered how Tracy got such a big contract [last] summer for a guy so young. It's not what he did for us in the regular season. It's what he's doing in the playoffs. That's when the great players make their living. You can't dispute it now. He's a great player getting better."
Like Carter, McGrady does not lack for confidence, but after finishing seventh in the league in scoring at 26.8, less than a point behind his more celebrated relative, he has exhibited an ingratiating manner in stating his case.
Example: T-Mac, you've certainly made a favorable impression on everybody close to the game.
"And I'll come back and do it again and again, if that's what it takes," McGrady said.
But they are gong to be keying on you, young fellow.
"Give me a break. What can they [Bucks] do about it? Have you seen anybody do it yet?"
As they say, it ain't bragging, if you can back it up.
Jeffrey Denberg, who covers the NBA for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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