The Coach Kidd rookie season countdown continues with an enormous road win by Jason’s squad over the defending champion Miami Heat amid a torrid month of March.
No. 4: March 12, 2014 — Nets Hold Off Heat in South Beach Thriller
Heading into a March 12th meeting with the Heat in Miami with two straight wins under their belt and a 22-9 record since the start of the new year, Coach Jason Kidd’s Brooklyn Nets had a lot of confidence entering the key matchup.
The confidence proved warranted as, in one of the most closely contested games of the season, Kidd made all the right moves in crunch time to help his team earn their third straight victory over Miami, 96-95.
Although the Heat posted a higher field goal percentage at 48.5 percent versus the Nets’ 43.6 percent, Kidd’s side gained a sizeable advantage from downtown, where they shot 41.1 percent compared with Miami’s 33.3 percent. Brooklyn also forced 17 turnovers from the defending champions.
After a rough start to the season, the win was a statement that Kidd’s Nets weren’t the same squad that struggled early on. Point guard Deron Williams, who knocked down a key bucket late to keep the Heat at bay, examined the pulse-pumping win in postgame interviews.
“This is a huge win for us,” Williams said. “Confidence-wise, spirit-wise, everything. We talked about this in the morning, coming down the stretch, we need all the games we can have, and this is a big one against the world champs in their building.”
From the get-go, the contest was a back-and-forth affair, as the teams traded buckets to open up the game. Miami was able to grab a 20-13 advantage with just over four minutes left in the quarter, but Brooklyn stood tall. Thanks to a timely three-pointer from Paul Pierce and a pair of layups from Andray Blatche with under a minute remaining, the Nets had the score knotted at 20 at the end of the first.
Blatche scored the first points of the second quarter on another reverse lay-in but Michael Beasley responded with a 12-foot jumper to tie up the score again. Then Brooklyn’s reserve sharpshooter Mirza Teletovic painted his first strokes on what soon became a masterful game. On consecutive Nets possessions, the Bosnian knocked down a three-pointer and then made two free throws to give his team a 31-26 advantage with just over two minutes gone by in the second.
Miami then took advantage of its ability to get to the free throw line to erase the deficit. Dwyane Wade and Chris “Birdman” Anderson each made their way to the line, and Norris Cole hit a reverse layup to give the lead back to the home side.
Brooklyn came right back and responded with several counterpunches from deep, particularly from Teletovic, to take a 42-34 lead with 3:52 left in the quarter. However, Miami came right back, scoring eight straight points to end the frame, and the teams found themselves knotted again at 42-42 heading into the locker room.
Teletovic’s 11 points were tops on the Nets and Chris Bosh and Wade had 13 and 12 points, respectively, for Miami. While Brooklyn’s advantage came from the three-point line, the Heat went 11-of-15 from the free throw line, while Kidd’s team only made six first half trips to the charity stripe.
Both sides found their offensive rhythm in the third frame, and each shot near 60 percent from the field. For Brooklyn, Pierce assumed control of the offense and scored 10 of the team’s first 13 points in the frame to stake the Nets to a six-point advantage. But Miami answered back yet again and took a 66-65 lead with 3:49 remaining in the frame.
The squads remained neck-and-neck until a Pierce trey gave Brooklyn a bit of breathing room in the form of a four-point lead. Then right on cue, LeBron James hit a 20-foot jumper with 30.3 seconds left in the quarter to cut the Nets lead in half, to 73-71 going into the fourth.
Pierce finished the third quarter with 17 points, and Jason sent him to the bench for some rest early in the final frame. With Pierce resting, Teletovic heated up once again prompting a tough decision for Coach Kidd: Plug Pierce back in, or stay with the hot-handed Teletovic, who finished with 17 points. In this instance, Jason took the advice of his veteran player and let the streaking Mirza stay on the floor just a bit longer.
“
[Mirza] was on fire,” Kidd said. “That’s something about those guys on the bench. They always let me know to let guys stay [in the game]. Paul said, ‘Let him go. He’s going.’ I wanted to come back with Paul a little earlier, but Mirza was knocking down shots and spreading the defense.”The decision paid off, as the Nets held onto their lead before Pierce re-entered and immediately buried a triple to stretch the advantage to four. The Heat kept at it still, and eventually tied the score at the two-minute mark.
But in crunch time, two of Brooklyn’s biggest stars came through with two clutch buckets. Pierce answered the call with a driving layup, and Williams sank a step-back jumper to put Brooklyn up by four.
However the Heat refused to go away, and a three-point-play from Bosh made it a one-point ballgame with 30.6 remaining and after Williams misfired on the ensuing Nets possession, Miami found itself with the ball and six seconds left for a chance at the win.
During a timeout before that last play, Coach Kidd made an unconventional decision to switch defenders, leaving Shaun Livingston on LeBron James. Off the inbounds play, the move proved wise as Livingston was able to step in front of the pass intended for James and knock it away. Brooklyn was able to hold onto the ball and the huge 96-95 road win that capped off a three-game winning streak and put the Nets three games above .500.
In a rare sign of emotion for the normally cool and collected Kidd, the first-year head coach clenched his fists and ran down the bench with a grin on his face.
“I wanted to get better with our switching,” Kidd said after the game. “We lost some games earlier in the year by (poorly) switching.”
Pierce lauded Brooklyn’s ability to perform in the clutch and in hostile environments.
“As a veteran, playing in so many of these big games, you always try to get yourself prepared mentally, physically,” Pierce said. “You know what it’s going to take to come into one of these types of territories and get a win.
“From the time I woke up at shootaround, I was really locked in. … I understood this is going to be one of our toughest games to date.”
The win had great significance, as Kidd’s team would later become the only team to defeat the Heat four times in the regular season since LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined forces with Dwyane Wade in South Beach.
In addition, the victory provided the confidence that Brooklyn would take with them in close contests throughout the playoffs and the regular season.
