Forget for a moment that this was a game that never should have gone down to the final moments.

Forget that the Raptors had allowed the Denver Nuggets to hang around and hang around until all of a sudden, the game itself was in jeopardy.

Forget that it was an utterly dismal bit of entertainment for 40 minutes.

All of that fades away to background noise as Vince Carter steps up to the line with three foul shots to shoot and three seconds left, his team down by three points.

Denver's Nick Van Exel is at his side, in Carter's ear, smiling and chatting, needling, distracting. And hoping.

"I told him that whatever he was saying to me was going in one ear and out the other," Carter said later on. "Actually, the whole bench was talking to me. I said it doesn't matter what you say, I'm going to make these free throws."

And then, he did.