Nets oust Raptors, advance in playoffs

Jefferson scored the winning basket on a spinning layup over Chris Bosh with 8.3 seconds left and stole a pass in the waning seconds as the Nets beat the Raptors 98-97 on Friday night to win their first-round series 4-2.

Next on the agenda for the Nets will be LeBron James and the Cavaliers, starting Sunday in Cleveland.

However, New Jersey easily could have been playing a Game 7 in Toronto had Jefferson not stepped up big time after getting a surprising call from Nets coach Lawrence Frank with the game on the line.

With New Jersey trailing 97-96, Bosh missed a jumper from the top of the key with 16 seconds to play. Antoine Wright got the rebound and the Nets called a timeout with 12.6 seconds remaining.

Everyone in the Continental Airlines Arena watched the Nets walk to the bench and expected Frank to call a play for Carter, the former Raptor who was booed every time he touched the ball in Canada in this series.

Frank had another idea. He called Jefferson?s number and had Carter run to the left corner, the same side from which Bostjan Nachbar was inbounding the ball. The pass went to Jason Kidd on the left wing and he found Jefferson coming off a screen by Mikki Moore at the right side of the key.

Jefferson, who needed surgery to fix a bothersome right ankle in January, went right at Bosh, spun, elevated to the rim and scored a layup to bring the crowd of more than 17,000 roaring to its feet.

?That shows the character of our team and the weapons we have on our team,? said Carter, who finished with 21 points on 6-of-19 shooting. ?For the last couple of plays, they were really loading on me and sending a lot of guys to the middle. This time, they put me on the wing and R.J. had a one-on-one drive to the basket and had a hell of a finish.?

The Raptors, who rebuilt their team in the offseason and supplanted the underachieving Nets as the Atlantic Division champions, wanted to go to Bosh on somewhat of an alley-oop play.

Jose Calderon took the inbounds pass about 10 feet inside the midcourt line. He dribbled a couple of times and then tried to lob a pass to Bosh.

Jefferson fought off a little shove in the back from Bosh and leaped high to steal the pass. Within seconds, the series was over.

?We executed the play we wanted,? said Bosh, who also had nine assists and seven rebounds.