When the game was over, all Jason Kidd could do was wonder what happened.
J-Kidd collided mid-air with Trailblazer Brandon Roy in the final seconds of Dallas 85-81 loss to Portland on Tuesday night. Fortunately, No. 2 didn’t suffer any injuries, despite landing flat on his back and lying motionless on the court for a few seconds, giving his teammates quite a scare. But the Mavericks certainly missed his presence on the final play.
While Jason recovered, teammate Jason Terry missed a rushed shot and the Mavs couldn’t recover. All J-Kidd could think about was the last play.
"Why didn’t we call a timeout?" he asked trainer Casey Smith while he was still on the ground.
Teammate Dirk Nowitzki also reflected on the last play and agreed with J-Kidd. As he told DallasBasketball.com:
"Kidd is down, so it probably would have been wiser to call timeout. But hey, we’ve been good on the fly before—getting a stop and then being aggressive in transition. So, we can’t really fault Jet on that. He made an aggressive play, got to the basket and then just didn’t get the roll. Afterwards you’re always smarter, and it probably would have been better to pull the ball out, get a timeout and set the play up and try to tie the game up."
Even Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle echoed J-Kidd’s thoughts after the game. As he told ESPN:
"I’m the head coach, so I’m accountable for the result of that play. The fact that we didn’t call timeout is on me. I take responsibility for that, so that’s my fault. And I won’t go into it any further."
Before No. 2 took a hard fall, he grabbed six rebounds, dished out half-a-dozen assists and sunk a three-pointer.
NEXT UP
J-Kidd will take a few days to rest his back before The Mavericks return to action against the Memphis Grizzlies Saturday at 2 p.m. CST on Fox Sports Network.
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