Jason and the Mavs weren’t ready to go home — instead, the future Hall of Famer and his Dallas teammates out-toughed the Nuggets on Monday, willing themselves to a 119-117 Game 4 victory.


Chauncey Billups gets a first-row seat of a No. 2 layup (Getty Images).

Led by Dirk and J-Kidd, the Mavs didn’t panic when they fell behind by 11 point early in the first. Instead, they used the energy of the home crowd to slowly and surely fight their way back into the game. Doing all the little things right, like outrebounding the Nuggets 50-36 and hitting 36-43 of their free throws, added up a Monday night victory.

Coach Carlisle talked with the Mavs Blog about his two leaders after the game, comparing both to Larry Bird.

“Look, I can’t say enough about what Dirk did out there,” Carlisle said in the opening statement of his postgame press conference. “Just a fantastic performance. Kidd is one of them. Larry Bird is one of them, not many others.”

J-Kidd helped the Mavs to not repeat their mistakes in the final seconds of the game; this time the Mavs hit the big shots down the stretch. No. 2 did a little bit of everything to help his team win, scoring 13 points, grabbing 10 boards, handing out six assists, and picking up three steals.

Jason talked with NBA.com about the character of the Mavs and their refusal to give up.

“We were going to fight tonight. And we are going to have to do that for the rest of the series. The big thing is that we came and played this evening. With the flagrant fouls or the T’s, it just shows our character that we can play through that. As much as that first quarter when they got up big, we could have folded the tent and that would have been it, but that just showed the character of our team to fight through all that.”

“We’ve taken a little baby step in the sense of winning this game because it’s easy to say hey we don’t need to get on that flight to go back to Denver. We showed character and fought. The fans were great and we won the game. The pressures on them to find a way to win the series. We don’t have any pressure. We just have to go up there and find a way to win.”

BATTLE OF THE POINT
Both point guards did all they could to give their team the victory, with Jason coming up on top this time.

Slam Online described the play of the two veteran point guards best:

 

“Due to its lone valence electron Potassium is one of the most reactive elements in existence. Translation: it likes to get involved with everything. It is also necessary for the function of all cells, plant or animal, without they die. Jason Kidd and Chauncey Billups proved once again that they like to be involved with whatever aspect of the game they can get themselves thrust into, while being immensely responsible for the survival of their teams offense. Kidd was ever so quietly within striking distance of a triple-double, needing just a few more assists; really is it any surprise when he has games like this even at his age? Perhaps the bigger surprise was on the defensive end where his lateral quickness certainly isn’t what it used to be, but it didn’t prevent him from swiping three steals. Billups was certainly more outspoken with his 24 points and 7 dimes, and proved to be a handful down the stretch. Kidd for all of his defensive effort saw Mr. Big Shot light him up for five straight points in the closing minutes, first getting burned off the dribble, and then watching Billups drain a triple when he opted to sag off him a bit. Neither team is within striking distance of a win without these two facilitators on the floor in this game.”

The Mavs are only going to go as far as Jason can lead them, so hopefully he can continue his sure handed ways at the unfriendly confines of the Pepsi Center.

NEXT UP
The Mavs hed to the Pepsi center to try to extend their season Wednesday night at 8 pm CST on TNT.

RELATED STORIES
Nuggets 117, Mavericks 119 (ESPN.com, May 11th, 2009)
http://espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=290511006
Dirk was Bird-like down the stretch (Mavs Blog, May 12th, 2009)
http://mavsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/05/dirk-was-bird-like-down-the-stretch.html
NBA Videos and Highlights (NBA.com, May 11th, 2009)
http://www.nba.com/video/
Nuggets/Mavericks Game 4 Recap (Slamonline.com, May 12th, 2009)
http://slamonline.com/online/blogs/game-notes/2009/05/nuggetsmavericks-game-4-recap/
Heard It Through the Grapevine (thetwomangame.com, May 12th, 2009)
http://www.thetwomangame.com/