After a heart-thumping, nailbiting, overtime victory over the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday, Jason Kidd and the Dallas Mavericks couldn’t replicate their performance on Thursday against the Orlando Magic.

J-Kidd went 35 more minutes, second most on the team and scored seven points, grabbed five rebounds and dished out a pair of assists, but the Mavericks couldn’t break free from the Magic’s spell, and fell 97-82.

While he didn’t want to make excuses, Jason told ESPN that the loss was part of the normal ebb and flow of the season, not a reason for alarm.

"It happens. It’s not that we didn’t try," Kidd said. "We were in a dogfight last night and it was a quick turnaround, and they were a fresh team that hadn’t played and they were prepared."

The Magic shot 14-for-24 from beyond the arc, something Jason said the Mavs had to expect from a team with the inside outside game of Orlando, as he told DallasBasketball.com.

"We knew that coming into the game we had to guard the three-point line with the Magic and they knocked down some threes and got going," Kidd said. "We couldn’t make our shots and we might have gotten a little frustrated with that and that led our defense to giving up some threes."

NEXT UP
Jason and the Mavs hope to step their defense up against the Oklahoma City Thunder Saturday night at 7:30 CST on Fox Sports Network.

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