In his short time on the New York Knicks, Jason Kidd has made plenty of plays to make his teammates take notice of his basketball expertise.

But on Sunday night with the Knicks in danger of sleepwalking to a second straight loss, Jason took it to another level.


J-Kidd and Carmelo Anthony embrace after a big fourth quarter from both brought the Knicks a win (Getty Images).

Fresh off a road game in Chicago on Saturday night, less than a week removed from his return from a back injury and with head ringing from another collision with an opponent, No. 5 mustered up the means to lead the Knicks to a 112-106 victory over the Denver Nuggets.

J-Kidd finished with 17 points on 4-of-7 shooting including 3-of-4 from three-point range. He sank all six of his free throws and also had four rebounds, seven assists and a steal in a season-high 34 minutes of game action. Carmelo Anthony, who led all scorers with 34 points in the win, gave credit to Jason for the victory.

"He led us tonight, especially coming down the stretch," Anthony said. "He made plays, we made plays and as you see we got a W."

Jason has spent most of the season playing shooting guard, to Raymond Felton’s point, but in the fourth on Sunday, it was the J-Kidd show. The Knicks entered the quarter down by four points to Denver and a minute into the fourth that deficit was double to eight and the Knicks were reeling. Coach Mike Woodson brought Jason in with 10:34 left and New York down five, and he wouldn’t leave the game again until the job was done.

"I elected to go with him at the point," Woodson said. "Nothing against Raymond

[Felton]. I thought Jason settled things down and got us into a lot of good things and we played off him."

Just 22 seconds after entering the game, J-Kidd found Steve Novak for a trey to pull the Knicks within two. Moments later an alley-oop to Tyson Chandler tied the game at 88. Each team followed with a fruitless possession and when the Knicks got the ball back, they missed again, but Jason was there to grab the second chance and dished to Ronnie Brewer for a dunk that gave the Knicks a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.


Jason and teammates celebrate a big play late in the game (Getty Images).

The comeback would continue through the hands of J-Kidd and Carmelo Anthony, who Jason said came to him early in the fourth and elected to let the game run through No. 5 rather than Anthony as it usually does for the Knicks down the stretch.

"It’s huge because he trusts me coming down the stretch," Jason said. "He told me, ‘Let’s play through you.’ Coach said he wanted to play through Melo and Melo was like, ‘No, I want to play through Jason.’ That’s the greatest compliment a teammate can give."

The results were undeniable. Back to back dishes from J-Kidd to Anthony put the Knicks up seven with 6:16 to go and moments later, Jason found Chandler for another alley-oop to make it 99-92 with 5:05 remaining in the fourth. After the game, Chandler marveled at his teammates’ ability to take over a game even without scoring.

"He had an unbelievable night," Chandler said. "Guys like J-Kidd have been through so many seasons and he still has the fire in his eyes to want to close out a game like this that. In the scheme of things, that means a lot. He was wonderful tonight. I just know he’s going to make the right decision. He isn’t going to cost his team anything. It seems like he’s always going to take the right shot or put the person that needs to take the shot in the right position."

Though Jason did most of his fourth quarter contributing via the pass, he did still get himself going offensively with 4:25 to go in the game, when he drove in for a layup to push a Knicks lead that had been cut to four back to six. His 17 points where a season-high for No. 5, as were the seven assists he tallied thanks to the six-dime fourth.

Thanks to J-Kidd the Knicks outscored Denver 32-22 in the final frame and cruised to a six-point win. Afterward, his teammates could not compliment him enough for his performance and the respect that the Knicks’ players have for veteran point guard was obvious.

"He is the difference-maker," Novak said after the game. "You know the right thing is going to happen."

Of course Jason’s big play also came with a bullet as he played most of the game with a bump on his head, the result of an inadvertent early game elbow from Nuggets guard Ty Lawson after Jason got him into the air with a shot fake. No. 5 joked afterward that perhaps teams are paying too much attention to him as a shooter.

"I thought the scouting report said I can’t shoot, so I don’t know why everybody is going for the pump fake," he said. "I’ll probably have a good headache in the morning. I thought November was a bad month but we’re getting off to another bad month with the head in December."

The last time he took a blow to the head, Jason required stitches. That wasn’t the case this time. Though the bump started to swell, J-Kidd remained in the game and logged a season-high in minutes.

 


No. 5 had a big bump on his head after a collision with Ty Lawson, but played through it (Getty Images).

He also took extreme measures to try and slow the swelling down. At halftime he sent for a hockey helmet from the New York Rangers’ equipment room to wear and limit the swelling.

"I got creative. They aren’t using them right now so I thought we would put that on for compression purposes," he said. " I needed something to keep the swelling down because my teammates were killing me about how big my head was getting. That was the only thing we could think of."

It worked, just like everything else Jason thought of on Sunday and the win was a big bounce back after a streak-breaking loss on Saturday in Chicago. Jason was limited to just six points with four rebounds and two assists in 29 minutes in that one. But the Knicks showed major resilience to comeback less than 24 hours later with a big win at home.

"It was a gut-check for us all," Chandler said. "Everybody came in here kind of like zombies. We didn’t get into our beds until 6 a.m. this morning and a lot of us have kids that came in and woke us up an hour later. Coming in and being able to get a big win like this says a lot about the team."

NEXT UP
The Knicks (15-5) get another gut-check on Tuesday as they look to avenge one of their five losses this season against the Nets in Brooklyn.

The two teams last met on November 26 in Brooklyn, a game that Jason was scratched from at the last minute with back spasms. The Knicks went on to lose that one 96-89 in overtime, but have one 6-of-7 since and expect to give the Nets a different look with J-Kidd in the lineup.

Tuesday’s tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. and the game can be seen locally on MSG or nationally on ESPN.

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