Sixers playoff flashback: A trip to Eastern finals after a Game 7 miss at the buzzer by Vince Carter

With the NBA playoffs on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic, here are some memorable 76ers playoff games dating to when they moved from Syracuse before the 1963-64 season. Is your favorite missing? Send feedback to Marc Narducci at mnarducci@inquirer.com.

Sixth of 12 parts.

“Don’t switch, don’t switch.”

That was the message Aaron McKie recalled telling his 76ers teammates coming out of the huddle, with the game and season on the line.

The setting was the First Union Center (now the Wells Fargo Center), two seconds left in Game 7 of the 2001 Eastern Conference semifinals.

The Sixers were clinging to an 88-87 lead over the visiting Toronto Raptors. Everybody watching knew that Vince Carter was getting the ball or that the Raptors would do everything possible to get it in his hands.

That season, Carter earned his second straight All-Star berth in a string that would extend to eight. It was his third NBA season, and he was among the bright, young stars in the game.

McKie, a dogged defender, had the assignment of guarding Carter.

“Coming out of the huddle, I was saying to the guys, ‘Stay with your man, we are not going to switch,’ ” McKie recalled in a recent interview.

In his mind, McKie was going to fight through any screen and remain at Carter’s side.

And then came some words fromteammate Tyrone Hill.

“Tyrone said, ‘If they set a screen, we will switch,’ ” McKie said.

McKie didn’t want to do that, but he agreed reluctantly.

Then the play unfolded.

Dell Curry, a three-point standout and father of two-time MVP Stephen Curry, inbounded the ball.

As the Raptors furiously worked at getting open, Charles Oakley, one of the more-punishing power forwards in NBA history, set an effective screen, and McKie was picked off the play.

That enabled Carter to get open, with Hill picking him up.

Carter caught the ball, pumped to get Hill away, and launched a jumper just inside the three-point line from the left baseline.

“I thought Vince got a good look,” McKie recalled.

The ball hit the back of the rim and bounced away.

The Sixers had survived.

“It’s one of those things -- if that shot goes in, you never hear about our team again,” McKie said.

After that game, played on May 20, plenty was heard about that Sixers team. It beat the Milwaukee Bucks in seven games in the Eastern Conference finals to reach the NBA championship series. After winning the first game in the Finals, the Sixers lost the next four to the Los Angeles Lakers, who earned the second of three consecutive titles.

None of the bright lights would have kept shining on the Sixers if Carter made that shot.

Larry Brown, the Sixers coach, remembers the play as if it were yesterday. Did he think it was going in when Carter launched the shot?

“Anytime Vince shot the ball, I thought it was going in,” Brown said in a recent interview. “I thought we did the best we could on that shot.”

The Sixers were able to win even though league MVP Allen Iverson was off the mark. Iverson was held to 21 points and shot just 8-for-27 from the field. He turned into an assist machine, though, with 16.

McKie led the Sixers with 22 points.

“Aaron was playing on fumes toward the end of that year because of injury,” Brown said. “We had to play him more minutes at small forward. He was great in that game.”

Unheralded Jumaine Jones, forced to start for the injured George Lynch, scored 16 points for the Sixers.

For the Raptors, Carter was off the mark, too, scoring 20 points, while hitting 6-of-18 shots from the field, including 0-for-3 from three-point range.

It was a bittersweet day for Carter, who visited Chapel Hill, N.C., in the morning before taking on the Sixers that evening.

That’s right, in the morning he attended graduation ceremonies, receiving his diploma from the University of North Carolina.

“I am a Vince Carter fan and love the kid,” said Brown, also a North Carolina graduate. “People may forget that he graduated that day at Carolina. I have so much respect for him.”

Toronto’s leading scorer that day was Antonio Davis, who had 23 points and added nine rebounds. Davis, Carter, and Iverson were three of the five All-Star starters for the Eastern Conference that year.

It was an excellent Toronto team, and it was only the conference semifinals, which showed how competitive the Eastern Conference was.

“Besides Vince, they had Antonio [Davis] who I coached [in Indiana]; Oakley, who has been in many big games and was such a competitor,” Brown said. “They had a couple of good defensive guards, the kid from Villanova, who was a very good player.”

Brown was referring to Alvin Williams, from Germantown Academy, who started and chipped in eight points that day.

In the series, Iverson led the Sixers with a 33.7 scoring average, and McKie averaged 16.1 points. Carter led the Raptors with a 30.4 scoring average, while Davis averaged 16.9 points and 10.4 rebounds.

The series was a combination of close games and blowouts. Four of the games were decided by five points or fewer, and three were by 12 or more points.

“Every bucket in this series was contested, and every rebound was contested, which is why it went to Game 7, the final shot,” Billy King, the Sixers general manager at the time, said recently.

Curry got Toronto to within 88-87 on a three-pointer with 55.5 seconds left. Iverson and Eric Snow missed jumpers on the Sixers’ next possession.

The Sixers had a foul to give and used it with 2 seconds left. Toronto then called time-out to set up the final play.

King was like everybody else connected with the Sixers. After Carter’s shot missed, the GM could finally exhale.

“It was one of those shots that when he shot it, I probably did think it was going in,” King said. “When he missed it, it was such a good relief. We were going to advance, that was a great feeling.”

Brown reiterated his preference for coaching in practice over games.

“With me, personally, I hate games, I love practice,” he said. “There has always been anxiety for me, whether it is Game 7 or the first game of the year. But once that game starts, I kind of love the competition.”

He added, “That game, I certainly loved the competition.”

Not to mention the result.