After Jason Kidd staged another phenomenal performance in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals on Monday night, Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle had some words of wisdom for anyone that might doubt what his point guard is capable of.

"Everybody asks questions about the age and all that other stuff," Carlisle said. "But the thing I’d say to anybody is, ‘Never underestimate greatness.’"

Jason proved his greatness yet again in Game 4, when he completed an all around solid night with the game-winning trey to bury the Oklahoma City Thunder. The winning shot came with 40 seconds left in overtime, breaking a 105-all tie. The Thunder failed to score again as the Mavs pulled out a 112-105 win.

The victory gave the Mavericks a commanding 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference Finals, sending them back to Dallas with a chance to close out Oklahoma City in Game 5 on Wednesday night.


Jason Kidd and Dirk Nowitzki are one win from their first NBA Finals appearance as teammates.

Of the Mavs’ 11 victories thus far, Monday’s was easily the most improbable. After a Kevin Durant three with 5:06 remaining in regulation, the Thunder held a seemingly insurmountable 15-point lead. But that’s not the way the Mavs saw it as they headed into a timeout.

"During the timeout there was always the comment that there was a lot of time left," Jason said after the game. "Five minutes, three minutes left, we felt if we could get the clock stopped and be able to score, hopefully that would give us a chance to do something."

The Mavericks went on to score 17 of the next 19 points to send the game to overtime. At that point, the Mavs had all of the momentum.

"In the playoffs, you can’t just throw in the towel," J-Kidd said, describing the mentality of his entire team. "We could have easily said, ‘Hey, we did our job, we won Game 3 and now we’re gonna go home with the split.’ But nobody ever hung their head. Nobody was complaining. We kept playing."

In overtime, J-Kidd scored five of the Mavericks’ final seven points, in the process, outscoring the Thunder 6-5 by his lonesome. He finished with 17 points to go along with seven assists, five rebounds and another four steals. But no play was more important than the late triple.

After creating the opportunity with a steal, Jason set up the Mavs offense, then found his spot along the three-point line. Teammate Dirk Nowitzki dribbled himself into a double team near the baseline and, rather than force a bad shot, he made a quick pass to J-Kidd. Nowitzki, who scored 40 points in the victory, described the sequence:

"I was actually gonna make a play there on the elbow against Collison. And once I turned, I think Westbrook was right there or right in between, so I didn’t really have a good look. So, I swung it over to Kidd, and he made a nice little play, I thought."

No. 2 pump-faked to fool defender Russell Westbrook, and then—all the while managing to keep his feet behind the line—went up for the trey from the right corner and hit nothing but net. The bucket put the Mavs in front, 108-105. Dallas added four free throws— two each from J-Kidd and Jason Terry— to finish out the win. After the victory, Nowitzki told Mavs Moneyball that he was proud of his teammate’s performance:

"Really, I mean, I’m proud of Jason Kidd. I mean, the way he battles on defense, the floor game he leads for us every night, the steals he gets and the huge 3 in overtime to put us over the top and put us up by three. I tip my hat to him every night the way he competes.

People still think that Kidd is not a good shooter. Over the years, he has proved everybody wrong. He made big shots for us this season. Any time he is open down the stretch, I think it is going in."

Mike Fisher of Dallas Basketball noted that Jason’s basketball IQ was the difference in securing the victory:

"But in Dallas, this is a verification of the value of BBIQ.

At the very end, there was The Iron Houdini, Jason Kidd, slapping the ball away from Durant with 61 seconds remaining in overtime. And then a moment later, there was Kidd pump-faking the intellectually overmatched superstar Russell Westbrook into the rafters and then, toenails apparently freshly-clipped, stayed behind the arc for his 3-pointer to make it 108-105 lead with 40 seconds left."

In the game’s waning moments Jason had prepared himself to take the big shot and he was sure the game would come down to him making a shot he’s made before, both in his mind and on the floor.

"I knew the ball was gonna end up to me," he said. "Dirk has a little trust in me and I thought they were going to go double on us, so my job is to be able to knock down that shot. They kind of went to him late so Westbrook could contest my 3. I thought about jumping into him, but I just reloaded and shot it. People were talking about it reminded them of the Boston game in Boston, so I just got lucky that the ball went in."

But Jason’s influence on the game goes beyond numbers and shots, as Michael Lee of the Washington Post points out:

"Kidd remains the best pure point guard still playing this postseason.

It’s not about speed and athleticism, which Kidd lost years ago and which Rose and Westbrook — who claimed first- and second-team All-NBA honors, respectively, this season — have in abundance. It’s not about spectacular plays, although Kidd can still whip out a ridiculous bounce pass that splits two defenders from time to time.

And it’s not about stats. It’s about impact.

At age 38, Kidd continues to find a way to influence the outcome of games, as he did on Monday, when he was responsible for the two most critical plays that helped the Mavericks stun the Oklahoma City Thunder, 112-105 in overtime of Game 4."

To read more from Lee on Jason’s postseason performance, click here.

SLOW START, INCREDIBLE FINISH
After taking Game 3 in Oklahoma City with a defensive-minded effort, Jason recognized that it would be tough for the Mavericks to replicate that energy in Game 4 on Monday.

"I don’t think it’s going to be hard in the sense that it’s the playoffs and Game 4 is just as big as Game 2 when you look at 2-2 or 3-1," Jason Kidd said. "The big thing is we’ve got to come out with that same energy and effort."

But at the outset of Game 4, Oklahoma City took control. Dallas scored just eight points in the first six minutes of play in the opening period to fall behind, 18-8. Nonetheless, No. 2 had his game going early, first dishing to Dirk for the team’s first points and then, moments later, hitting his first three-pointer of the night.

The Mavs began to claw their way back late in the quarter and Jason put two more points on the board with three minutes remaining in the first to pull his team to within nine, 26-17. By the end of the first the Mavs trailed 31-22.

In the second, the Mavs showed the veteran poise that has been so crucial throughout the playoffs. They continued to work on cutting the deficit and when J-Kidd scored another layup with 44 seconds remaining in the half, it pulled Dallas to within just three points, 55-52. At halftime the Thunder led 59-54.

The Mavs got off to a slow start again in the third, but Jason finally put them on the board when he hit a three with just under 10 minutes remaining.

No. 2 followed that score with assists to Dirk and then Jason Terry (twice) to minimize the damage of a 13-4 run by the Thunder. But Dallas still trailed by 14 points, 81-77, heading into the final frame.

When Jason re-entered the game after a short breather midway through the fourth, the Mavs trailed 90-81 and with five minutes remaining Oklahoma City had pushed that deficit to 15 points. But after being on the other side of a large comeback loss in these playoffs, J-Kidd said he and his teammates felt that they could put together a similar comeback:

"Why can’t we do the same thing?" Kidd said of Dallas’ mindset in the closing minutes of Game 4. "I have been on the other side when we have given up leads. Those are easy to remember, when you give up a big lead and lose a game you felt you should have won. We kept playing and kept believing."

At that point the Mavs started to play, as Nowitzki put it, "almost perfect basketball."

After hitting two free throws, Jason fed to Dirk for a triple, that made the score 101-94 and then, with the score tied, No. 2 came up with a huge defensive rebound to send the game into overtime.

All told, Dallas put together a 28-6 run over the final nine and a half minutes of play to seal the victory and demoralize the young Thunder squad as the series heads back to Dallas.

TRADE WINS
With Jason’s strong performance in the playoffs bringing the Mavs within a game of the NBA Finals for the first time since 2006, Zach Lowe of SI.com felt it was time to re-analyze the trade that brought J-Kidd back to Dallas.

Lowe notes that at the time of the trade, many wondered why the Mavericks would give up a young point guard like Devin Harris for J-Kidd. But they aren’t wondering any longer:

Jason Kidd is a piece that helps hold this puzzle together. We all know he’s become a very good three-point shooter in his old age, but that’s even more important on this Dallas team than it might be anywhere else. Without a consistent drive-and-kick threat, the Mavs rely on the attention Dirk Nowitzki draws and their ability to space the floor in precise ways with as many good shooters as possible.

It’s a system that can thrive with one so-so shooter — Shawn Marion or the streaky DeShawn Stevenson — but struggles when you put two such players on the floor at once. It would not have survived had Kidd not transformed himself this way. He nailed four huge triples in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals on Monday night, and I can remember at least three that came directly via his work with Nowitzki. The first two were especially revealing, since they came on simple pick-and-rolls with Dirk when Kidd simply waited out the Thunder’s de facto strategy on these plays — a strategy Dallas has figured out — and drained an open look.

Beyond his offensive contributions, Lowe writes that it’s Jason’s defense that has set him apart this postseason:

"Defensively, Kidd’s ability to guard multiple positions is crucial to a team that has to find places to hide Barea, Terry and Peja Stojakovic. It has allowed Dallas to switch on the Thunder’s beloved Westbrook/Kevin Durant pick-and-roll, a play that worked brilliantly Monday when Barea was defending Westbrook but sputtered when Kidd played that role.

Barea and Terry were both on the team when the Mavs engineered their complicated Devin Harris/Jason Kidd trade in February 2008, but perhaps it’s a little much to credit Dallas with foreseeing this exact kind of team when the deal was made. Kidd had already developed into a league-average three-point shooter by then, but the Mavs viewed him as a dynamic point guard and not a top-notch spot-up threat."

To read Lowe’s entire analysis, click here.

AN IMPORTANT STOP
On the Mavericks’ off day between victories in OKC, Jason took some time away from the court to visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial and pay tribute to the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing.

For a photo from Jason’s visit, visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial’s official website.

NEXT UP
The Mavs head back to the confines of the American Airlines Center, winners of five straight playoff road games and just one game shy of reaching the NBA Finals for the first time since 2006.

Game 5 is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. CST on Wednesday and will be televised nationally on ESPN.

RELATED STORIES