Jason Kidd faces one last NBA mountain with Mavs in Finals

Jason Kidd faces one last NBA mountain with Mavs in Finals originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Having experienced the great and ugly of sports, and of life, the most popular high school athlete in Bay Area sports history now wears his gray facial hair like a badge of maturity earned through years of toil, turbulence and accomplishment.

Jason Kidd, 51, has one more mountain to climb, one more professional summit to scale. And he’s staring at it.

At his third stop, 678 games into his professional head-coaching career, Kidd stands before the NBA Finals. His Dallas Mavericks are confronting the mighty Boston Celtics, with Game 1 scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday night at TD Garden.

“This is a road trip in the sense of a job,” Kidd said Wednesday during the Finals news conference in Boston. “We have an opportunity here to find a way to win on the road. That’s how we’re approaching it.

“This is the best of the best at the highest level. It’s fun. That’s what the Finals are all about, is seeing what team is going to step forward and take advantage of mistakes.”

It wasn’t long ago that Kidd, despite an offense anchored by stars Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving, wondered if the Mavericks would be able to secure a playoff berth in the rugged Western Conference.

“Our offense is good enough,” Kidd told NBC Sports Bay Area in December, when the Mavericks were in the Bay Area to face the Warriors. “I’ll take Luka and Kai anytime.

“But we have a lot of work to do to fix our defense. We have a rookie [Dereck Lively II] we really like, but we need more at the rim and on the wings.”

I then asked Kidd if he misses Dorian Finney-Smith, a defensive-minded wing who was traded to Brooklyn 11 months earlier.

“Yeah,” Kidd said. “But that’s what it took to get Kyrie. I think it’s worth it.”

The Mavericks were 22nd in defensive rating at the time, in fifth place in the Western Conference with an 18-14 record. Five weeks later, they were 24th in defense, with a 26-23 record. They had fallen to eighth place.

Dallas’ front office, led by general manager Nico Harrison – whose relationship with Kidd goes back…


Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/jason-kidd-faces-one-last-144753837.html

Author : NBC Sports BayArea

Publish date : 2024-06-06 14:47:53

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