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Leaping past Carter highlights otherwise ho-hum win over France
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Vince Carter stole the ball and had just one thing between him and the basket -- 7-foot-2 (2.18-meter) center Frederic Weis. He went over him like Weis was a prop in a dunk contest. Looking like a contender for the gold medal in the high jump, Carter unleashed one of the most awesome dunks in Olympic history Monday as the United States overcame another lackluster start to defeat France 106-94. "For me, that was probably the greatest play in basketball I've ever seen," teammate Jason Kidd said. "Michael Jordan hasn't done that. Nobody has done that. He's the next coming of Vince Carter." The Americans finished the preliminary round undefeated in five games and raised their overall Olympic record to 106-2. And in those 108 games, it's safe to say there has never been a dunk quite like the one Carter made. Not by Michael Jordan, not by Spencer Haywood, not by Clyde Drexler. Not by anybody, not like this one. It might even have been better than anything Carter pulled off in the NBA slam dunk contest last February. "I don't rank mine. I just do them," Carter said. "I didn't think I was going to make it, actually. I took off from a long way away."
The spectacular play came four minutes into the second half. With France trying to move the ball upcourt and nine of the 10 players on the court running the same way, Carter was headed the other way as he intercepted a pass some 10 meters (30 feet) from the basket and bore down on Weis with a full head of steam. He took off from a step or two inside the foul line, spread his legs in mid-air and went right over Weis, barely scraping the top of the Frenchman's buzzcut hairstyle. "I knew he could jump, but I didn't know he could jump over me," Weis said. "Everybody will know my face now, or my number at least. It's going to be on a poster for sure." The crowd went wild, the American players leapt off the bench and Carter's personal dunk catalogue had a new entry. "I don't do them for my enjoyment, I just do them because that's what happens," said Carter, who recalled that he once dunked over 2.15 (7-foot) Dikembe Mutombo, too. "The only time I've seen a play like that is when I jumped over my 4-year-old son on one of those Nerf ball sets," coach Rudy Tomjanovich said Carter scored the Americans' next two points on an alley-oop pass off the backboard by Gary Payton, and it drew a mere buzz by comparison. That's how fantastic his previous dunk was. "That was a 10, maybe a 12," Tim Hardaway said. "I've never seen anybody jump over a 7-footer. It got us pumped up, and I think they were rattled for 3-4 minutes after that." Highlights aside, the Americans had plenty of trouble early and let France creep back into the game late. A dunk by Crawford Palmer with just over four minutes left made it a 10-point game, 94-84, but Antonio McDyess responded with a dunk of his own off a length-of-the-court pass. Kevin Garnett clanged a dunk attempt off the back of the rim and into the stands with 3:42 left, giving France a chance to pull even closer. But Antoine Rigaudeau missed a jumper and Garnett had a reverse dunk, a steal and another dunk in the space of the next 10 seconds. That made the score 100-86, and the threat of another close call like the one the Americans had four nights earlier against Lithuania was gone. Aside from the Carter and Garnett highlights, this was a game the Americans would like to forget. France finished with the highest point total of any American opponent in the Olympics since 1976 and the second closet margin of defeat since NBA players started playing in 1992. McDyess finished with 20 points, Garnett 19 and Carter 13. Laurent Sciarra led France with 21. For the most of the first half, the Americans were softer in the middle than fully ripe brie as they allowed France to make layup after layup against a lineup with no true center. But after falling behind by double digits, 18-8 and 20-10, the Americans took the lead for good on a 3-pointer by Tim Hardaway that made the score 28-25 with 9:05 left. Three more 3-pointers came in the next two minutes as the U.S. team was building an 11-point halftime lead, and the U.S. eventually pulled ahead 81-57 before France tried to make a game of it and almost succeeded.
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