Back in 2002, as a member of the New Jersey Nets, Jason Kidd felt what it was like to be swept by the Los Angeles Lakers in a playoff series.

Now, nearly 10 years later, Jason and the Dallas Mavericks have returned the favor. On Sunday afternoon, the veteran point guard helped the Mavericks steamroll the defending champs, 122-86. J-Kidd picked off four steals and handed out seven assists while scoring three points and grabbing two rebounds.

"I’ve been on the other end of a lot of losses against the Lakers and Phil

[Jackson]," Jason said. "So, it’s good to get a win. It doesn’t matter if you get to sweep the series or not, just to win the series and move on. This is a two-time defending champions that we beat and we have to use that experience and we can’t have a let down."


J-Kidd’s play against Kobe Bryant, on both sides of the ball, was a key to Dallas’ series sweep of the Lakers.

There was no let down in this one. After dominating the Lakers on their home court at the Staples Center, Jason and the Mavs took on Los Angeles twice over the weekend at the American Airlines Center and the Mavs’ incredible play didn’t slow for a second. Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News described the dominating effort by the Mavs against LA:

"The Mavericks crushed the Los Angeles Lakers in every way Sunday afternoon.

The Laker mystique? Left in rubble.

Their intimidation factor? Blown to bits.

Their spirit and class? Gone in the final quarter.

Their five championships under Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson?

OK, the Mavericks can’t do anything about that. But after Sunday afternoon at a boisterous American Airlines Center, the Mavericks have put themselves in great position to have a genuine shot for an NBA title that the Lakers definitely won’t get.

And so, the Mavericks officially have taken dead aim on the franchise’s first championship.

It’s the first time Lakers’ coach Phil Jackson has ever been swept in the playoffs. He’s likely headed to retirement. If so, the Mavericks sent him there in humiliating fashion. They were clearly the better team in this series, as the result would indicate."

According to forward Shawn Marion, it was Jason who was pivotal to the stunning success the Mavs have enjoyed this postseason:

"What does he mean? The snake, that’s the head of the snake," the Matrix said of J-Kidd. "Do I need to say more? He’s our floor general out there. He’s making everything happen on the floor and man, doing a great job doing it."

For Mavericks fans, Sunday’s victory for the series sweep was a thing of beauty from beginning to end.

J-Kidd, Dirk Nowitzki, Peja Stojakovic, DeShawn Stevenson, Brian Cardinal and Jason Terry combined to tie an NBA record with 20 triples made in a playoff game. Terry hit nine, also tying an NBA record, and No. 2 wasn’t surprised to see the Mavs’ sixth-man hit so many from beyond the arc.

"He’s been doing that the whole playoffs," No. 2 said. "For some odd reason they were leaving him open this afternoon and he was doing what he does best, and that is catch and shoot, and he made quite a few of them. If it wasn’t Jet, it was Peja, he went 6-6 [from 3-point range] and so you got two of your best guys going. It stretches the defense."

As a team, the Mavs shot an incredible 62.5 percent from 3-point range and 60.3 percent on all of their field goal attempts. At halftime they had jumped out to an insurmountable 63-39 advantage by scoring 36 second quarter points while holding the Lakers to a mere 16.

At the outset of the game, Jason did a fantastic job of finding teammates and getting the offense running smoothly. With his team trailing 9-6 early, J-Kidd handed out three of the five assists during a 10-2 Mavericks run to take a 16-11 lead. Nowitzki took the first feed from No. 2 for a dunk to pull the Mavs within one. Dirk’s next bucket came on a dish from Marion, but over the next two possessions, it was Marion scoring off J-Kidd’s dimes as the Mavs surged to the lead.

Kobe Bryant cut the Lakers’ deficit to just three with a jumper, but Jason doubled it when he drained a triple from the right wing to make it 19-13. The Mavs would never trail again. ESPN Dallas’ Jeff Caplan put Dallas’ shooting during the four game series into historical perspective:

"According to ESPN Stats and Information, for the series, the Mavs made 49 3-point field goals, an NBA record for a four-game playoff series. L.A. made just 15 3-point field goals and went just 4-for-31 from 3-point range in the fourth quarter during the series."

Behind that three-point shooting, the Mavs already led by 16 when Jason checked back into the game with 4:27 left in the half. J-Kidd helped Dallas put the game away shortly thereafter. He dished out his fourth assist late in the second, hitting Peja Stojakovic for a trey. At half, the Mavericks led by 24.

But rather than relax after the break, the Mavs poured it on. J-Kidd hit Dirk for a jumper and Dallas’ first points of the second half. He added two dimes to Jason Terry on a trey and a layup as the Mavs maintained a 25-point lead with 5:43 to go in the third. They cruised from there to the win.

Thanks to the blowout nature of the victory, No. 2 played just 26 minutes in Game 4. He averaged 32.3 minutes per game in the series with 8.3 assists, 7.8 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2 steals per game. Rob Mahoney of The Two Man Game dished Jason some credit for the effort all series long:

"Jason Kidd deserves a round of applause for 1) his well-publicized ability to impact the game in a variety of ways, and 2) his tremendous defense against Kobe Bryant in this series. Kidd didn’t even rack up all that many assists in Game 4, but he was a contributor during some big Maverick runs (the 10-0 sprint to close the first half, for example) and did those mythical little things."

AN INCREDIBLE DEFENSIVE PERFORMANCE
One of the biggest stories during the series has been, as Mahoney noted, that outstanding defense that No. 2 has played on Kobe Bryant.

In the final game of the series, the Mavs, with J-Kidd guarding Kobe for long stretches of the game, held Bryant to just 17 points on 7-18 shooting in 37 minutes. What’s more, Bryant went 0-for-5 from beyond the arc.

"It was a team effort,” No. 2 said. "We threw a lot of bodies at him and forced him to take tough shots. We saw when he came out aggressive we knew the ball was going to be in his hands and it was going to be a fight. That is the kind of player he is. He never gives up. We tried to make it as tough as a possible.”

Jason said throughout the series that his goal was simply to not let Bryant beat the Mavericks on his own.

"You try to stay in front of him. I mean, he has all the moves, all the ability to get to the basket and can shoot the jumper, so you’re giving up something. We’re just trying to make it tough on him and try to keep a body on him when he does shoot the ball."

But Jason’s teammates glowed in their reviews of his work on the Lakers’ leading scorer.

"Kidd is a crafty Hall of Famer," said DeShawn Stevenson, who started each game on Bryant during the series. "For him to be on Kobe during some big stretches and play him the way he’s played, it just shows you about his heart and where his mind is at."

Still, after each game of the series, J-Kidd’s mind was on the team defense the Mavs played on Bryant, what Dallas did as a unit.

"It’s our team defense on Kobe. We’re trying to throw as many bodies as we can [at him] to wear on him," Jason said after Game 3. "The guy has almost 30,000 points, somewhere around there, so he’s going to score. We have to make it tough on him and everybody else. We’re just trying to help one another and hope that he misses at the right time.

"I’m not doing anything special. I’m just trying to lean on him and use my weight, maybe that’s the only advantage on him," Jason joked. "We have to play as a team defensively to have any chance to beat the Lakers. We have to play great team defense. It’s not just going to be individual matchups…we have to help each other out."

Though Jason refused to accept the praise heaped upon him, others weren’t shy about praising J-Kidd and his efforts, as Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas wrote:

"We’re witnessing an incredible individual defensive effort during this stunning Western Conference semifinal series. Kidd, a 38-year-old destined for the Hall of Fame, has managed to dial back the clock for several outstanding defensive spurts against one of the greatest scorers ever to play this game.

Consider this: Kobe, who moved past former teammate Shaquille O’Neal into third place on the league’s all-time scoring list Friday night, has scored all of two points during the seven most important minutes of the series. A man widely considered by far the best clutch scorer in the NBA — hmm, doesn’t Dirk Nowitzki deserve that kind of respect? — has more turnovers than buckets during the deciding moments of the two tight games in this series."

Jason’s teammate Tyson Chandler was equally impressed with the future hall-of-famer’s play:

"I can’t even explain that one," Chandler said. "Like the way he’s moving and denying the ball and getting under him, I mean, it’s incredible. I’m watching him and most of the time I’m thinking about helping him and I’m looking and looking over there, and he’s doing a great job."

Dallas’ other center, Brendan Haywood, echoed those thoughts:

"He’s just a good defender, man. He knows how to play the game. He has great instincts to go along with good physical abilities. And he leaves it all out there."

But it was MacMahon who perhaps wrote it best:

"Kidd’s heart and mind speak volumes. So have those old legs. No need to open his mouth to boast about being a bonafide crunch-time Kobe stopper."

NEXT UP: REST
With a four game sweep in the books, Jason and the Mavs will have ample time to prepare and rest for their next opponent in the Western Conference Finals—either the Oklahoma City Thunder or the Memphis Grizzlies.

Jason is looking forward to the time off, as he told ESPN Dallas:

"If I was young I would say yes, we need to keep playing," Kidd said. "But, I’m a little older now. The big thing is rest, regroup and understand that we get to watch who we’re going to play next, do a lot of studying and make sure that we’re prepared."

Dirk Nowitzki noted that it was important for the Mavs to get Jason some rest because he’s shown them how he responds to it:

"We got him a week off before the playoffs and you saw how rested and how he played well in the first two games," Nowitzki said.

No matter who the Mavs face, Jason is just looking to enjoy the experience, his first trip to the conference finals since he went to the NBA Finals with the Nets eight years ago, he noted the rarity of the opportunity to Calvin Watkins of ESPN Dallas:

"Kidd understands moments like this don’t come often.

"I look at that every year in the playoffs,’ Kidd said after a Game 3 victory where he scored 11 points and had nine assists with four turnovers. ‘You’re not guaranteed to make the playoffs … and for that you have to put your best foot forward each time you take the floor at this time of year."

It’s that rarified air that keeps Jason focused and refreshed:

"I’ve been lucky to make it twice to the Finals and come up short," he said. "And I’ve also been around a lot of first-round exits, when we were the favorites. You just got to take it one game at a time and once that game is over you got to push forward."

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