The hangover was worse than anything resulting from beer mixed with your basic rotgut liquor. Blow a 16-point lead in less than seven minutes and your skull would be pounding, too.
But the Nets found little time to nurse their injured pride and senses. Vince Carter and the Magic visit the Meadowlands tonight, so the Nets needed to flush out the sour aftertaste of their opening-night debacle ASAP.
“He was great. He was a guy I always could depend on,” point guard Devin Harris said of Carter, who scored 15 in the Magic’s season-opening rout of the Sixers. “They could never double-team both of us because that other guy was always there. It was a great one-two punch. We talked a lot. He was a good mentor for me.”
And tonight, Carter wants to be an antagonist, along with another ex-Net, Ryan Anderson, who spent one season in New Jersey compared to VC’s five. And while it’s a homecoming of sorts for the Orlando pair, several Nets will have a reunion with the Magic. Courtney Lee, Rafer Alston and the injured Tony Battie all came from the Magic, the Eastern Conference champs, in the Carter deal.
Lee wants to purge the memory of a 2-of-11 shooting horror in the Nets’ gut-wrenching 95-93 setback in Minnesota. The Nets led by 19 points, then 16 with less than seven minutes left. And lost. That could set you to drinking heavily.
“The type of night that I had, 2-for-11, I haven’t played like that in a while,” Lee said. “To let them come back from a 16-point deficit, we let ourselves down as a team. And playing against the team I helped get to the Finals, it’s going to be all fun in the warmups, and before the game and after. During the game, I’ll approach it like another game. They’re my opponents.”
An intriguing one-on-one battle is at center with Brook Lopez against Magic All-Star Dwight Howard. But much of the attention will be on Carter, who was a staple in New Jersey for most of the decade.
“As quality a person as you can meet, regardless of if he was in sports or not,” coach Lawrence Frank said. “One of the true low-maintenance superstars in this league. Whatever role was asked, he accepted. A first-class human being both on and off the court. An eight-time All-Star, a future Hall of Famer. And hopefully he doesn’t give us 50 tomorrow.”
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An ultrasound exam confirmed Jarvis Hayes suffered a strained left hamstring. He’ll be out 2-3 weeks. “We’re thankful we’re looking at a couple of weeks, whereas it would have been a whole lot worse than that,” Frank said. . . . As expected, the Nets picked up contract options on Yi Jianlian, Brook Lopez and Courtney Lee for the 2010-11 season, and declined their fourth-year option on Sean Williams. . . . The Magic without Rashard Lewis, who is serving a 10-game suspension for violating NBA drug policy.