The last time they opened up a playoff series in Toronto, the Nets resided in New Jersey and point guard Jason Kidd tallied 15 assists to lead them to a 96-91 win over the Raptors in Game 1, on their way to a series win in six.

On Saturday afternoon, the Brooklyn Nets begin their quest for their playoff series win since, and a whole lot more, and they’ll once again be guided by J-Kidd, but in a much different role.

Brooklyn Nets v Washington Wizards

After 19 seasons as a NBA player, 17 playoff appearances and 158 playoff games, Jason will coach his first playoff game on Saturday when the Nets take on the Raptors at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto.

“It’s basketball at the end of the day. The little things become that

[much] more important,” he said of the playoffs. “We can’t overlook the little things because those can come back to haunt us: taking care of the ball, free throws, boxing out. As a player, I always felt that is what wins series.”

The beginning of his first postseason as coach will mark many firsts for J-Kidd, but mostly it will serve as the start of the culmination of a turbulent season, filled with spectacular highs and dreadful lows, that ended with the Nets right where they were supposed to be at the outset of the playoffs.

Being a rookie head coach in the NBA is a hard enough task for anyone to take on. Helming the Brooklyn Nets in one of the country’s most notoriously savage media markets would cause most to crack under the immense pressure to perform. But not Jason Kidd.

Despite struggles to start the season, Coach Kidd remained confident in himself and his veteran team, leading them to the franchises’ second-straight playoff appearance since moving to Brooklyn.

“CAN I GET THE PIECES TO FIT?”

When Jason was announced last June as the Nets’ new head coach just one week after he had retired from the game as a player, many in the media doubted that J-Kidd would be able to effectively lead the Brooklyn squad.

Early into the 2013-14 campaign, Brooklyn’s critics wondered if management had made a mistake by handing the reins of the franchise in a rookie head coach. Under Kidd, the Nets went 10-21 in 2013.

Starters struggled to find a rhythm and key players like Deron Williams, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce dealt with various injuries that kept the team from playing at full strength. Brooklyn was dealt a huge blow in late December when star center Brook Lopez suffered a season ending injury. As the New Year began, nothing seemed to be going right for the rookie coach.

“There was a moment of, ‘Are we ever going to be healthy?’ Right around Christmas,” Kidd told BrooklynNets.com earlier this week. “‘Are we ever going to be healthy? Will the pieces of the puzzle ever fit?’ And that’s what a coach’s job is, to get the pieces to fit. Probably that was the one moment that stood out: ‘Can I get these pieces to fit?'”

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However, just as he has done time and time again as a player, J-Kidd battled through the adversity, choosing to focus on what his team could do to improve rather than harping on the negatives.

“I just tried to keep thinking of different ways,” Jason continued. “We were behind a little bit offensively and defensively because of some different things that took place. And that falls on the coaches. So it was, “Where are we offensively and where are we defensively? Is this what’s working for us or do we need to make a change offensively to get guys in better positions?” Even with Brook [Lopez] in, we weren’t taking advantage of our shooting behind the arc. You write these questions on the board and try to figure out how to make the right changes.”

Since the beginning of 2014, the Nets have looked like a completely different ball club. Lopez’ absence allowed Coach Kidd to move Garnett to center allowing he and Pierce, who moved to power forward, to truly flourish. Williams and Joe Johnson also took more of an active role both on and off the court.

“As crazy as it sounds, Brook Lopez going down might have been the best thing that ever happened to [the Nets],” Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix said. “Give Jason credit for it. He didn’t just go out there and keep KG at the 4 and put, say, Andray Blatche or Mason Plumlee at the 5-position. He did a great job of adjusting on the fly and deserves credit for it.”

The Nets went a league best 10-3 in the month of January, posting key wins over the Miami Heat, Oklahoma City Thunder, and the New York Knicks, and Coach Kidd got that credit when the league named him the Coach of the Month.

Toronto Raptors v Brooklyn Nets

From there, Brooklyn kept rolling. The team embarked on a league-best 15 game home winning streak and continued to grind out tough wins while inching closer to a playoff berth. Meanwhile, Coach Kidd’s newfound demeanor, matched with his always tireless work ethic earned him praise all across the board.

“I think Jason probably feels like he’s been reborn,” Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich said before his team faced the Nets in February. “Things looked really bad for a while, everybody’s on him. … He’s got that tenacity and competitiveness where he’s just not going to give in. Those people that stick with it, have some perseverance, some standards and are strong enough to stick with them in the right way, good things can happen. And that’s what happened for him.”

PRAISE EARNED

While many outside the organization had their doubts, those within remained steadfast about their decisions and backed Coach Kidd every step of the way.

Nets GM Billy King noted that he has nothing but admiration for the way that Jason dealt with adversity.

“The biggest thing (to the turnaround) I think is with Jason. Now we have a system of how we’re going to play, an identity,” King said. “That’s something we’ve been searching for a while, is getting an identity…. We have a system, and I think a lot of the credit is players playing well, but Jason has been amazing.”

Brooklyn Nets All-Access Practice

Nets principal owner Mikhail Prokhorov also expressed his confidence in the first-year head coach.

“I really had no doubts about Jason, nor did I have any doubts that building a contender with the Nets would take some time,” Prokhorov said through a spokesperson. “We spoke once during the tough period and I told him not to pay any attention to what the papers were saying — no offense, New York Post — and to just do his thing. Now it’s clear that he is even more talented at coaching than I anticipated he would be. He has his own specific vision for the team, and the players absolutely respect him. I think we will go far together.”

By March, the Nets had more than climbed their way back into the Eastern Conference playoff picture, they sat right behind the Raptors in the Atlantic Division. Brooklyn posted a 12-4 record in the month, and Jason was awarded Coach of the Month for March, his second such honor in three months.

“It’s all about the guys in the locker room,” Kidd said after winning the March award. “Those guys are playing at a high level.”

A win over the Houston Rockets on April 2nd clinched a second-straight postseason appearance for the team, and a first for Coach Kidd, something many deemed impossible just three months earlier. But the Nets never wavered in the support of their coach.

“He’s grown just like this team has grown,” Pierce said. “His maturity, his hands-on [approach], coming from a guy who had no coaching experience — [even coaching] his kids — I don’t know if he ever coached at the YMCA or any of that. But, from the beginning, he has always had our respect and he’s always had our trust that he will figure things out. He has one of the great basketball minds, and he can adapt to any role.”

Brooklyn Nets_Miami Heat

Williams noted that it was Jason’s calm demeanor that inspired his players to overcome some tough odds, right the ship and give themselves a chance to chase their goals.

“It’s good when your coach is even-keeled — there’s no highs, there’s no lows,” he told The New York Daily News. “It makes you at ease. He doesn’t get mad at anybody for shots really. He doesn’t say, ‘Don’t shoot, don’t do this, don’t do that.’ I feel like he lets most people play through their mistakes, which is good. It gives us confidence. He should get a lot (of credit for the turnaround). I think a lot of the criticism at the beginning was unfair. We didn’t have numbers. We had guys in and out of the lineups. For any coach, that’s going to be tough. Him and (GM Billy King) unfairly got the brunt of the media. But now you’re kind of seeing what the team can do.”

THE NEXT CHALLENGE

The Nets will get a chance to show what they can do as they begin a series on Saturday against a talented Raptors squad that won the Atlantic Division title that Brooklyn has its eyes on this season.

Each regular season game between the two sides has been hard-fought, with both sides claiming two victories. Brooklyn won the first meeting Nov. 26, 102-100. The Raptors captured the series’ next two victories, winning 96-80 at home on Jan. 11, and capturing a 104-103 win at Barclays Center. March 10, Brooklyn avenged these two defeats, outlasting Toronto at home in a 101-97 win.

“We’ve seen a lot of them,” Jason said. “We had four pretty good games with them. They went back and forth and we split the series with them. It should be an exciting series. They play hard. They’re well-coached and we will have our hands full. I’ve played for Coach Casey, so I know they’ll be well prepared.”

Cleveland Cavaliers v Brooklyn Nets

It will be up to Coach Kidd to make sure his Nets are just as prepared, and point guard Shaun Livingston, who has had a career-defining 2013-14 season under Jason has no doubt that will be the case. Livingston listed J-Kidd’s aggressiveness and assertiveness as his top qualities as a coach, the same qualities that made Jason a NBA champion as a player.

“I think with the lineup, with the planning, especially game-planning for teams, the way we match up with teams, teams have to match up with us as well,” Livingston said. “He ran the point-guard position. He sees it out there and I think him being more vocal has helped us as well.”

No matter the outcome of the series, Kidd expressed his happiness with his new career and said he is interested to see what the future holds for him in his new endeavor.

“I look forward to what the future brings as a coach,” Kidd said on ESPN NewYork 98.7 FM’s The Michael Kay Show when asked if he’s in this for the long haul. “I’m excited about my new career.”

Tip-off of Game 1 between the Nets and Raptors is slated for 12:30 p.m. ET and the game can be seen on ESPN.

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