The Carter-Jordan showdown profoundly disappoints; afterwards VC's nonchalant attitude doesn't exactly make fans feel any better.

Michael Jordan tries to get by Vince Carter. 

By Fred Schiebel, Head Writer

TORONTO -- Well, we found one person who wasn't at all interested in the battle of Air Canada facing Air Jordan for the first time on the hardwood. Unfortunately, it was one of the participants.

While both Vince Carter and Michael Jordan had off nights in the Toronto Raptors's 96-80 Sunday victory over the Wizards, it was Carter whose demeanor caught everyone's attention in the postgame interviews. Not to mention his play on the court beforehand.

Jordan appeared to have won this round, simply by turning in a slightly less miserable performance. He finished with only 16 points, connecting on only 8 of 23 shot attempts.

If you talked to Carter however, there was no competition between him and the legend. In his typically dismissive manner he played down the matchup. Both in his words and in his play, scoring only nine points total, on three of a mere 14 shot attempts from the field.

"It doesn't concern me at all, to tell you the truth," Carter said of the matchup. "That's for y'all in the media to make a big stink about. I'm focused on winning basketball games, which we did tonight."

Washington began the game with a solid start, a 7-0 run in the middle of the first quarter powering them into a 21-16 lead. Carter missed his first four shots, before slamming home a left-handed dunk that wowed the crowd. At the end of the period the Wizards led 23-20, Jordan scoring four points on two of five shooting, Carter scoring only two on one of five. It seemed more like the headline bout was actually Jordan vs. Hakeem, with the former Rockets center scoring ten points in the first twelve minutes for his new team. Washington point guard Chris Whitney was surprisingly the best player of them all in the period, gathering 11 points and still dishing four assists.

By halftime Toronto pulled ahead 45-41 on a twenty foot jumper at the buzzer by Aaron Williams that doubled the lead. Jordan had eight points at the break (4-11FGs). Meanwhile Carter took only one shot in the second quarter, which he hit, to finish with a mere four points.

"I was doing my best not to get caught up in the hype," he said. "If I score 55 and we lose, who cares?"

The thing is, Toronto wasn't exactly burning up the nets, shooting only 38 percent from the field in those first twenty four minutes. Couldn't they have benefitted if he was more offensively aggressive?

"My shot wasn't falling, so I looked for other guys that had it going. I took what the defense gave me," he said. "We ended up winning easily. How can you end up criticizing that?"

In the third Toronto began to pull away, advancing their advantage to seven by the start of the fourth, 63-56, Both Jordan and Carter were one of six in that stretch, during which a strange lull drifted over the crowd that appeared depressingly surprised at how unexciting the duel had turned out to be.

"What can I say, it happens," Jordan said. "Not all the games we play can be classics. Sometimes it just isn't in the cards."

The Raptors turned on their offensive jets in the final period, scoring 37 points on 60 percent shooting that put the last nails in the Wizards' coffin. Up ten with a little over seven minutes to go, Dell Curry hit a straightaway three and a subsequent twenty foot jumper from the left wing to up the lead to fifteen. Not long after Jordan scored on two straight jumpers to cut the deficit back down to eleven, but it was the closest the Wizards would get.

Olajuwon led the Raptors with 18 points. Richard Hamilton had a game high 20 points for Washington.

"If I was a fan, I wouldn't hesitate to buy a ticket for the next time they meet," coach Doug Collins said. "Somehow I bet it'll be a lot more exciting."

Even he probably asked for a refund after this one.