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Revisiting Vince Carter's Game 7 miss from 2001

Picture supplied by Action Images

The Toronto Raptors' up-and-down postseason run this spring has already set a franchise record for duration at 13 games played, with No. 14 coming Sunday when they host the Miami Heat in the seventh and deciding game of the Eastern Conference semifinal.

A win puts the team further into the playoffs than they've ever been, while a loss matches the franchise's previous high-water mark: a second-round exit after a hard-fought seven-game series against the Philadelphia 76ers in 2001.

For those not old enough to remember, with two seconds left in Game 7 in Philly, Stephen Curry's father Dell inbounded the ball to Vince Carter with the Raptors trailing by one.

Carter's jumper clanged off iron, and the Sixers advanced. It remains a seminal moment in Raptors history, because it represented the beginning of the end of the Vince era in Toronto. Despite signing a six-year contract extension with the Raps that summer, injuries cost Carter 70 games over the next three seasons, before a growing rift with team management led to his 2004 trade.

The miss was compounded by the fact that on the morning of Game 7, Carter had insisted on attending his graduation ceremony from North Carolina. A top-10 player in the NBA at the time, Carter flew from Chapel Hill, N.C. to Philadelphia on Raptors part-owner Larry Tanenbaum's jet, arriving to join the team around midday.

While it's difficult to accurately pin a missed jump shot on where a player slept the night before, criticism rained down on Carter. It didn't help when teammates like Chris Childs declined to publicly back the choice.

"I'm not the right person to answer that," Childs told reporters when asked if Carter's graduation trip affected his play. Carter finished the game with 20 points and seven rebounds on 6-of-18 shooting.

Years later, Carter stood firmly behind his decision that weekend.

"I was able to accomplish two of my goals: to make it deep into the playoffs was one, and to graduate," Carter told CSN's Dei Lynam in 2013. "So that day is something I will never forget and always cherish."

Long-suffering Raptors fans may feel a little different.

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