They had to go back home to Dallas to complete it, but Jason Kidd and the Mavericks swept through the Florida teams this weekend, knocking off the Orlando Magic on Friday in Orlando and the Miami Heat on Saturday in Dallas.

Jason was clutch in both games on both sides of the ball. For the weekend, No. 2 was 9-16 from the field with 31 total points, 19 assists, 13 rebounds and seven steals in the two victories

IN JASON THEY TRUST
The Mavericks entered the fourth quarter of Friday’s game in Orlando on a 7-0 run but still trailing by four points.

At that point, Jason was 0-4 from beyond the arc, and struggling to find his range. But with his teammates getting hot and the good vibes becoming contagious, No. 2 knocked down the biggest shots of the night.

Jason buried a three with 10:48 to go to give Dallas their first lead since the opening quarter to extend the run to 12-0 and give the Mavs a 70-69 lead.

"The big thing I knew coming down to it was I needed to make a three, first of all," No. 2 said. "I had some great looks early on [and missed]. But my teammates felt I was going to be open and I needed to knock down the three for us to win that game. I passed one up earlier when JET gave it to me. So I told them I’d shoot the next one. I goy lucky and it went in."

The run would continue for two more minutes and reached 19-0 on a J-Kidd 12-footer before Jameer Nelson drove for a layup to end it, but the Mavericks led 77-71.

Dallas retained the lead for the rest of the game. Orlando cut the advantage down to four, but Jason drained a dagger three with 1:20 to go to give the Mavericks an 88-81 lead. Dallas went on to claim a 95-85 victory.

DEFENSE THE KEY
Though he stepped up his offensive game to score eight of his 10 points in the fourth quarter, No. 2 was most proud of the way the team buckled down on defense.

"We haven’t been playing any defense as of late," Jason said lamenting the 40-point quarter the Mavs gave up in Oklahoma City on February 16. "When we play defense, we’re in the game. We’re not going to win every game, but when we do play defense it gives us a chance to win and this was a perfect example of that tonight."

Early on, the Mavericks had a hard time finding an answer for Magic center Dwight Howard, who finished with 29 points. Howard ran through the paint as if he were completing layup drills, making bankers and dunks routinely.

"We’re not a big team," Jason said. "We were going to put Dirk on him. That was the next step. But that’s putting a lot of pressure on Dirk. Our thing was to make it tough to make the three and make those guys make tough shots."

So the Mavericks locked in on shutting out Orlando’s perimeter game and it worked. The Magic finished 4-25 from beyond the arc, an abysmal 16 percent shooting average.

"We were just trying to take away the three," No. 2 said. "Those guys are great at shooting the three and we tried to contest twos, make it hard and hope that they missed coming down the stretch there. We got some big stops there."

New center Brendan Haywood also limited Howard’s offense in the final quarter and the big man only scored six points.

"In the third and fourth we made Dwight become a passer," J-Kidd said. "We couldn’t let the layups keep happening and putting that pressure on Haywood. There they started to turn the ball over and missing threes. We capitalized on that."

Jason surmised that the Mavericks did a good job of picking their spots against Orlando, forcing them into difficult situations that led to turnovers and missed shots. The defensive aggressiveness could be something that carries Dallas deep in to the playoffs.

"You’re going to give up something in this league facing a talented team like Orlando," J-Kidd said. "They have great shooters around Dwight. So when you do go double, you’re giving up the risk of getting run out of the building with the three. We just stayed aggressive. When you do things aggressively in this league, it covers up some of the holes. I think it did that tonight."

COOLING THE HEAT
The Mavericks rolled home with a two-game winning streak as they welcomed the Miami Heat to town Saturday night.

Once again Dallas put itself behind the eight ball, trailing 52-44 at halftime, but the defense limited Miami to just 12 third quarter points to take a 71-64 lead after three. They went on to win 97-91.

Jason scored 21 points, 19 of which came in the second half, 14 in the fourth quarter. Jason actually scored the Mavericks first 11 points of the fourth as they pulled away to take the victory. He also finished with 11 assists to record his 17th double-double of the season.

NEXT UP
The Mavericks look for four straight when they host the Indiana Pacers tonight at American Airlines Center. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. CST and the game can be seen on Fox Sports Southwest.