Throughout an 82-game season, great players will make constant adjustments along the way so that they keep improving.

Jason Kidd is no different.

As Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News explained in a recent column, No. 2 recently made a subtle change to the way he was shooting threes and the results were immediate.

"I saw something on the tape and made an adjustment," Kidd said. "My ball’s been a little flat so I just tried to shoot the ball up and it went in.”


Kidd was shooting 36.5 percent before Friday. That’s OK by his standards, but not great. He’s accustomed to being closer to the 40-percent mark from beyond the arc.

The tweak may send him on his way to that level."

The small adjustment did wonders for the veteran point guard on Friday in Utah as he shot 60 percent from beyond the arc to finish with 15 points. No. 2 added seven dimes and three rebounds to help lead the Mavs to a 93-81 win.

It was a defensive contest early as the game pitted the first and second-ranked teams in opponent field goal percentage against one another.

Jason netted the Mavs’ first points of the game when he drained a long jumper with his foot on the three-point line. Later, No. 2 helped to end a four-minute Mavs shooting drought when he found Jason Terry cutting to the hoop after an inbounds. Terry’s lay in cut Utah’s lead to four midway through the first.

Jet returned the favor with two left in the quarter when he kicked the ball out to a waiting Jason for a three that brought the Mavs to within one, 20-19. When the first quarter ended, J-Kidd led all Mavs with seven points.

After a back-and-forth second that saw the Mavs jump out on a 9-0 run and the Jazz finish the half on an 11-5 run, Dallas came out firing in the third.

Jason hit a nice jumper just inside the three point arc and then, after drawing a critical charging foul, he swished two triples in the next 54 seconds to give the Mavs the 62-55 lead with three-and-a-half minutes remaining.

The second-ranked assist man in NBA history also kept getting his teammates the ball and seemingly every Mavs player got a chance to score in the third. Unselfishness, No. 2 told the Dallas Morning News, was key to the Mavs’ phenomenal quarter:

"It’s contagious,” Kidd said. "The game is easy when everybody touches the ball. The guys we have are talented who have been in the league a long time and understand we should get a good look. As much as we lean on Dirk, there’s other guys who can put the ball in the basket."

Utah coach Jerry Sloan was not surprised by Jason’s magnificent play throughout the game:

"He’s a great player and he doesn’t have to score points,” Sloan said of J-Kidd. "He’ll make big shots on you, but I’ve always said that guys who pass the ball make their teammates much happier. It’s hard for you to be disgruntled when a guy is giving you the ball in an easy place for you to do something with. And he’s probably as good as anybody throughout his career to be able to do that.”

HAPPY HOMECOMING
One night later, the Mavs finished their road trip in Sacramento, where it was a homecoming of sorts for J-Kidd at ARCO Arena.

ARCO holds fond memoires for No. 2, as it’s the arena the Hall-of-Fame point guard won the California High School State Championship with Saint Joseph of Notre Dame nearly twenty years ago.

That familiarity came in handy in the final quarter, as the cool as ice J-Kidd hit the game winning free throws with 30 seconds remaining to give the Mavs the 105-103 victory over the Kings.

Jason, who scored eight points to go along with five rebounds and five assists, also played game-saving defense in the win. No. 2 was tasked with guarding the red-hot Tyreke Evans and held the guard to just two points in the final quarter. Coach Rick Carlisle had high-praise for Jason’s effort, as quoted by Mavs Moneyball:

"The last three or four minutes, it was basically pitching a shutout. Jason Kidd did a phenomenal defensive job on Evans, just taking him completely out of the game at the end."

No. 2 upped the intensity in the fourth and glued himself to Evans:

"I didn’t want him to touch it," Kidd said of Evans. "I wanted them to have to go to somebody else to score. And if he did get it, I wanted him to have to work the shot clock down to where he only had one option."

HOW YOU FINISH
In the opening quarter against Sacramento, the Mavs shot a solid 57 percent from the field including 4-of-5 from beyond the arc.

But it was the Kings, looking to redeem themselves for their 33-point loss the night before, that outshot the Mavs and hit 60 percent of their attempts. After one, the Mavs had uncharacteristically allowed 37 points while scoring just 28.

Sacramento began to cool in the second, and, after a 12-4 Dallas run, the Mavs had tightened the score to 50-46. By half, they were trailing by a single point and J-Kidd was impressed by his team’s determination to stay in the game:

"They played great in the first half, but we were only down one point on the road. The big thing for us was just to continue to keep playing the way we have these last couple of games on the road."

Jason got his game going in the third. He completed the old-fashioned three-point play after he drove into the lane for the left-handed lay-in off the glass. Then, less than a minute later, No. 2 drained a triple from the top of the arc to get his team within three, 68-65.

On defense, J-Kidd draped himself all over Evans and the Mavs allowed just four Sacramento points in the final five-and-a-half minutes. According to No. 2, the second-half went exactly to plan:

"See what happens in the fourth quarter with six minutes left, that’s been our motto – having big third quarters and then shutting teams down in the fourth. We did that tonight."

Coach Carlisle said that given the way the Mavs have been playing these last two weeks, he expected them to come out on top:

"When you’re going good and your spirit is really good, you win games like this – a very difficult game. It’s a great win. It was a very difficult game against a team that’s going to get a lot better because they are young and they are getting a lot of experience and a game like this is going to harden their resolve. It’s a great win."

Jason agreed whole-heartedly and felt the Mavs showed a lot of character in coming back to win:

"This was a good test for us. After the emotional win in Utah, this team’s not playing real well and we had a slow start."

NEXT UP
No. 2 and the Mavs open a six-game home stretch tonight against the Golden State Warriors (8-12, 3-8 away).

The game is slated to begin at 7:30 p.m. CST and will be televised nationally on NBA TV and locally on Fox Sports Southwest.

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