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Net Canes An eerie canal runs from Carolina to New JerseyPosted: Wednesday June 12, 2002 12:35 PM
No one who has watched the Nets all season thinks this team is going to quit in Game 4 against the Lakers. Win? Maybe not. Quit? No chance. No one who has watched the Hurricanes in this playoff season thinks the team is going to give up in Game 5 against the Red Wings. Win? Perhaps not. Give up? No chance. By Friday morning the NBAand NHL underdog tales may be over and thus will end the parallel diversions of this spring. Parallel diversions? Try twin thrillers, a pair of upstarts who will likely wind up as runner-up footnotes to the feats of two all-time teams. These clubs aren't just similar, they're similar in a Lincoln-had-a-secretary-named-Kennedy-and-Kennedy-had-a-secretary-named-Lincoln kind of way. To wit, 10 uncanny similarities to blow your alleged minds: 1) The Nets' most important player, Jason Kidd, didn't win the MVP award that some people felt he deserved, partly because many of the things he does to help his team are intangibles that can't be measured in stats. 2) The Hurricanes, playing in an environment where people are still getting used to having an NHL team to root for, didn't sell out its home games in the early rounds of the postseason. 3) Carolina, earlier in the playoffs, surprised most prognosticators by beating a team from New Jersey (the Devils). 4) The Hurricanes' pivotal playoff performance was an emotional win in Game 4 of the second round, when they rallied from a 3-0, third-period deficit to beat the Canadiens, in Montreal. 5) The Nets' top center, Todd MacCulloch, was born and raised in Canada. 6) The Hurricanes would not have reached the finals without the valuable playoff contributions they've received from a reserve player wearing a mask, goalie Kevin Weekes. 7) In the Finals, young Nets coach Byron Scott looks down the floor to see a counterpart (Phil Jackson) who has more NBA title rings than any current coach around. 8) The Hurricanes' sixth-leading playoff point scorer is a rookie, Erik Cole. 9) Though they were badly outplayed in Game 3 of the NHL finals, the Hurricanes might have won the game if not for a huge play by the Red Wings' Hall-of-Fame-bound sniper Brett Hull in the final stages of regulation play. And the final eerie link: 10) The Nets, who won the deciding game of the first round of this year's playoffs in overtime, were until this season best known for their accomplishments in the wild and wacky ABA, before the team joined the NBA in the 1970s. Sports Illustrated senior writer Kostya Kennedy takes sides every Wednesday
at CNNSI.com.
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