As Jason Kidd made his return to Brooklyn on Wednesday night for the first time since abrupt summer departure from the team that he guided to the second round playoffs last year, the hype surrounded J-Kidd’s arrival, not the play of his team, a position no coach wants to be in.

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But by the end of the night, and one of the most thrilling games of the young NBA season, the focus was firmly back on his new team, the upstart Milwaukee Bucks.

In a back and forth battle to the very end, Milwaukee outlasted Brooklyn for a heart-stopping 122-118 victory in triple overtime, and afterward, Coach Kidd glowed about the performance of his young team.

“It was a big character game for our young guys, to fight all the way to the end,” Jason said. “Everybody pitched in, just like it has been all season, everybody has a part of helping us win games.”

Wednesday’s game marked Jason’s first at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center since his Nets team was knocked out of the playoffs Miami Heat in last year’s Eastern Conference Playoffs. His mission then was to lead a roster full of savvy veterans to the promised land, but it didn’t quite work out for Brooklyn and the sides parted ways over the summer, as Jason’s rights were eventually traded to Milwaukee for a pair of second round draft picks.

Hard feelings followed Jason back to the New York borough and when he was announced as Milwaukee’s coach prior to the game, he was greeted with a chorus of boos. He said after the game that he didn’t pay much attention to the reaction and noted that the game is about the players, not the coaches.

“I have bad hearing anyway,” he quipped. “Whatever the greeting was,

[the game] is about the players. People don’t come to see the coach, they pay to see the guys play, visiting team or the home team. Brooklyn has a great opportunity with the Nets being here. The Nets have a great opportunity to be in Brooklyn. I think it’s a great fit. With a coach, cheer or boo, they have that right.” 

Once the game got underway, the attention quickly turned to those players.

Rookie Jabari Parker notched a career-high 23 points, including a 7-for-10 shooting display from the free throw line, while fellow 19-year-old Giannis Antetokounmpo pitched in a double-double with 18 points and 12 rebounds in the win.

“Giannis was great on both ends and Jabari was great on both ends,” Coach Kidd said. “I think it’s a great learning tool for them, for their confidence. This league is built on confidence. You sprinkle in athletic ability and the basketball IQ, and they’re growing. You can see it right in front of us. We’ve seen Giannis grow in the last 10 games. Jabari is doing the same thing.” 

Milwaukee Bucks v Brooklyn Nets

Additionally, the Bucks got solid contributions up and down their roster. Point guard Brandon Knight tallied 18 points while O.J. Mayo and Ersan Ilyasova gave Milwaukee a huge lift off the bench. Mayo scored 21, while Ers scored 14 points and grabbed five rebounds. The Milwaukee bench leads the league in scoring, and it showed in all three overtimes. 

“I’m going to use my depth no matter how many overtimes we go to,” Jason said afterward. “A lot of guys played a lot of minutes. B-Knight played a lot. Jabari and Giannis played a lot, but I thought Ers was able to come in and get us some second opportunities when we did miss. Then on the defensive end, we got stops when we had to.

“We are deep and I’m trying to keep minutes down because it’s a long season. Jabari’s never seen 82 games. Giannis has. But these guys are playing well. We’ve been in a lot of different situations since training camp, opening the season up with a 26-point lead and we lost late. Last night we were in a game where we were up 24, the Knicks come back and make a run and we find a way to win. These guys are going through a lot of different experiences in the first 12 games.”

Game No. 12 was a fresh experience for the Bucks and for most of the evening, they battled from behind. Brooklyn established an early six-point advantage and led by two after one thanks to a 55 percent shooting performance from the floor.

The Nets continued to shoot at a high percentage in the second quarter and although Milwaukee came back to tie it on several occasions early in the frame, Brooklyn ended the half on a run, eventually pushing their lead to double digits before settling into an eight-point advantage at the break.

The Nets controlled the first half by shooting at a 47.1 percent clip as opposed to 40.5 percent from the Bucks in the first half, but there were a few bright spots for Milwaukee in the first half, including the play of Parker, matched up with veteran Kevin Garnett and performed admirably, including a game-high 11 first half points.

Milwaukee Bucks v Brooklyn Nets

The matchup was one Coach Kidd and his assistants circled before the game and they even approached he rookie about the mind games Garnett would attempt to play with him. Afterward Jason commended the composure of his 19-year-old forward.

“[Jabari] was great. He got us off to a good start. On both ends, he did a really good job. It’s just an opportunity for him to build on,” Jason said. “KG is a Hall of Fame player. You understand one thing, he can play, but also it’s mental warfare with him. He’s going to try to get under your skin. You have to do the best that you can do to ignore it. It’s easier to say it than to do something, but he can get the best of you, and I thought [Jabari] did a great job.”

Brooklyn came out of the locker room looking to push the lead and put the game away, but the Bucks continued to battle. They never let the Nets lead get higher than 11 and as the quarter wore on, they started to chip away at it. During a two-minute stretch mid-way through the frame, Parker, Antetokounmpo and Knight combined for a 9-0 run to pull the Bucks within two points. Brooklyn managed to push their lead back as high as seven, but a three by O.J. Mayo at the end of the quarter cut the Milwaukee deficit to just three entering the fourth. 

From there, the game was an all-out battle with neither team leading by more than four until the third overtime.

After another trey by Mayo tied the score just 14 seconds into the fourth, Ilyasova answered a trey from Brooklyn’s Deron Williams will back-to-back jumpers in the first two minutes of the quarter to put the Bucks in front for the first time since the opening frame. The lead went back and forth three more times over the next two minutes until the Nets settled in with it and took it to the halfway point.

Milwaukee Bucks v Brooklyn Nets

But Milwaukee charged back. Mayo and Williams again traded treys that quickly gave the Bucks a one-point lead and then the Nets a two-point advantage. John Henson followed with a layup to tie it. Later, after Brooklyn had gone back in front by four, Henson and Parker tallied back-to-back layups to even the score at 93-93 with two minutes to go.

Nets center Brook Lopez came up with a big putback dunk with 1:14 to go to briefly push them back to the lead, and they had a chance to go up two possessions in the final minute. But Mayo once again had the answer, as he grabbed the ball off a Brooklyn miss, made a full sprint down the court and finished a transition basket to tie the score with just 30 seconds left to play, Neither team could avoid overtime as both Garnett and Mayo missed late looks to win it. 

The Nets established a lead early in the extra session, and though the Bucks came back to pull ahead by one halfway through the frame, Joe Johnson then took control of the contest. His three-point play with 2:30 left in the first overtime put the Nets up two and after Parker tied it with a layup, Johnson knocked down a beautiful turnaround fade-away jumper to give Brooklyn a two-point advantage with 42.2 to play.

Afterward, Coach Kidd commended the play of his former pupil Johnson, one of the game’s elite crunch time scorers, but also noted the work of the 19-year old Antetokounmpo in sticking with Johnson, and stepping up through an injury. 

“It made it tough. Joe is one of the best in the game. He gets even better late, being able to knock down shots,” Jason said. “Giannis did everything [on him], especially after twisting his ankle there. He didn’t want to come out. He’s a competitor. He’s a warrior. And I thought he was great on both ends.”

After Johnson’s bucket put the Nets ahead, the Bucks got a break on the other end when Williams fouled Mayo in the act of shooting. The Bucks veteran calmly stepped to the line and sank both free throws to tie the game.

Milwaukee Bucks v Brooklyn Nets

That set the stage for a crazy sequence in the final seconds of the first overtime. Johnson tried to go with an isolation to take a final shot that would either win the game for Brooklyn or send the game to a second overtime, but when he got trapped, the veteran tried to pass to a teammate.

Knight was there waiting, jumped into the passing lane and stole the errant pass with 2.7 seconds left. Racing against the clock, Knight stormed down the court for a wide-open layup as time expired, but missed it as the buzzer sounded, sending the game to a second overtime.


The moment was a learning experience for the 22-year-old Knight, and as Coach Kidd surmised afterward, it provided a chance for the Bucks to grow as a team through adversity. 

“We come up with a steal, have a chance to win the game at the buzzer. We missed it, but no one hung their heads,” Jason said, noting the way they came together after Knight’s miss. “Understanding how fragile it can be or how things can change in a tenth of a second…[Mayo], Bayless and those guys got to B-Knight and kept his head up. That’s what teammates do. When you care and you trust one another, when someone is down, you pick them up.” 

The game went back and forth yet again in the second extra session and as time wore down again with the Nets in front three and less than 20 seconds remaining, the ball found Knight again and gave the 22-year-old a quick chance at redemption.

It was an opportunity he would not miss as he buried a huge three-pointer with 19.6 remaining to knot the score at 112. 

“My teammates trusted me to make the next shot to force a third overtime, so that’s really what it’s all about,” Knight said, “and we stuck through it as a team.”

Afterward, Coach Kidd awed at the composure of his young point guard, the way that his teammates continued to trust in him, and the funny in unique ways the game of basketball works. 

“Guys kept B-Knight engaged,” he said. “Basketball is funny. He got another opportunity for a big shot and he knocks it down to tie it.”


Johnson still gave it a shot to end the game in a Brooklyn victory, but Antetokounmpo’s defense forced him into a bad miss and the game went to a third overtime. In that final frame, keyed by a few key substitutions from Coach Kidd to get some fresh legs on the floor, the Bucks took control. Among those subs was Khris Middleton, who came in for Mayo and tallied four crucial points in the third overtime. 

“O.J. was great, but I had to find time to rest him there in overtime,” Jason said. “It’s just nice to see that he passed the baton off to another teammate Khris, and Khris made some big shots for us. Everybody pitched in on the offensive end and the defensive end.”

Middleton’s clutch step-back jumper on the baseline gave Milwaukee a five-point lead, 120-115 with 91 seconds left to play. A three from Williams brought Brooklyn back within two and after a miss from Middleton, the Nets did have a chance to tie or take the lead, but a driving Williams was forced to dish to Johnson by a helping Antetokounmpo, who still managed to get a hand up on Johnson’s baseline jumper, which missed. The rebound was eventually controlled by Knight, who made two more free throws to seal the team’s second straight win.

“We’ll look at the tape of the last two games, but for those young guys, B-Knight is included, he’s only 22 years old, to be in the game late to make plays on the defensive end and the offensive end, [is big],” Jason said. “It was important for this young team to see it has the ability to win big games on the road. It was nice to see the whole team make plays and keep their focus.” 

Milwaukee Bucks v Brooklyn Nets

That focus was important, in the face of all the hoopla surrounding Coach Kidd’s return to Brooklyn, which featured plenty of heckling from the home fans, including some catcalls during the national anthem. But Mayo said the occasion, and the subsequent reaction to their coach, just motivated the Bucks even more to pull off the win.

“We’re standing to show our respect for our country and they’re chanting, ‘Kidd sucks.’ It was the wrong thing to say at that point,” Mayo said of the crowd’s reaction. “Coach Kidd is our man. I know we all took it personal. He’s helped us all in a huge way. It was a must-win for us. Without even saying anything to each other, we knew we had to win.”

For his part, Jason took the high road. He said that after the game he connected with and embraced several of his former players and noted that despite how things went down, he still hopes for the best for those players and the Nets.

“As a family last year we went through a lot. We’re going to still be a family,” he said. “I’m in Milwaukee now, but that doesn’t stop us from being friends and it doesn’t stop us from cheering for one another to have a successful season. I wish those guys the best, before the game and after the game.”

NEXT UP

After the both physically and emotionally draining win the Bucks (7-5) got a brief reprieve, but they will have to collect themselves quickly and focus again as they had to Toronto to take on one of the league’s hottest teams, the Raptors (9-2) on Friday night. 

Tip-off from the Air Canada Centre is scheduled for 6:30 pm CT. and the game can be seen on Fox Sports Wisconsin.

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