On December 27, Vince Carter returned back to the Sacramento Kings’ rotation against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Carter delivered a big performance for the Sacramento King’s by scoring Season-High 24 points, five rebounds, four 3-pointers made three assists, one steal, and one block. He played a crucial part for the team by handing over the second big loss for Cleveland Cavaliers with a 109-95 victory on Wednesday night.
Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue was not at all surprised by this. Not even a bit. Lue, who faced Carter during his playing days said, “He’s always been a guy, big stage, big moment, that’s been his time to shine. Couldn’t stop him tonight. He had it going.”
The 40-year-old Vince Carter could not play in the previous three games due to a rib injury and the coach’s decision. But in this game, Carter gave the Cleveland Cavaliers all kinds of problems on his return by shooting 10 of 12 in 30 minutes. He received a standing ovation from the home crowd after a stellar performance. As per the Kings, it was for the first time in the NBA history that a 40 plus-year-old scored at least 20 points in a game.
Carter said, “The shot was falling tonight but it was our ball movement, and the ball found the open guy. It just made it fun to watch. If we play that way we could be a pretty good basketball team.”
Carter made a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to give Sacramento an 85-80 lead heading into the fourth quarter. He connected again to make it 101-87 with 5:38 left and then made a 16 foot double-pump shot over Jae Crowder before leaving to a standing ovation when just 2.01 seconds were left.
Cleveland’s LeBron James said, “He had some bombs. Once he got going, we couldn’t slow him down.”
