INDIANAPOLIS — The poet laureate of close-out games will have himself another chance to hone the skill with which he became so proficient.
Saturday night, Jason Kidd will coach the Mavericks, up three games to two in their series with Oklahoma City, with a chance to close out that Western Conference semifinal and allow his players to relax Sunday while Minnesota and Denver tangle for the other slot in the West finals.
Back when he was a Net, Kidd became one of the NBA’s deadliest closers. That’s what those Nets did, the ones that started playing elite ball once Kidd showed up from Phoenix in the summer of 2001. It served them well. They made two NBA Finals. They came damned close to a third — they led the eventual champions Pistons 3-2 in the Eastern semis in 2004 — and it was only when their close-out luck faltered that the Nets finally began to fade.
In the middle of that three-year stretch — 2002 to 2004 — Kidd authored the Mission Statement for all teams seeking to close games at the earliest opportunity.
“Every day of rest you get in the playoffs,” Kidd said on the eve of those 2024 playoffs, “feels like a week in real time.”
The Knicks certainly could relate. Look, Goal 1 for them heading into Friday’s Game 6 match-up with the Pacers was win this semifinal series by any means necessary. If that means having to take care of business Sunday at Madison Square Garden, then that’s the way it has to be.
But using Kidd’s mathematics?
If the Knicks were able to beat Indiana Friday night in Game 6 in Gainbridge Fieldhouse, that would give them the equivalent of three weeks of rest before the start of the East Finals, which will kick off Tuesday night at 8 p.m. For a team that has grinded through each of its first 13 playoff games, the down days would be most welcomed.
“We tend to be able to sniff it when we have a shot,” Kidd said as he prepped for that Pistons series 20 years ago. “I think that’s the sign of a good, playoff-savvy team.”
This core group of Knicks — well, at least Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Isaiah Hartenstein — won their very first close-out game as a unit last year, Game 5 at home against the Cavaliers. They were 30 seconds away from going 2-for-2 when they had the 76ers in a 3-1 hole in this year’s first round before squandering a late six-point lead; they then promptly won that series in Game 6.
Friday was their third shot.
The Nets, interestingly, had to learn the hard way the value of closing. Their first playoff series together, in the spring of 2002 against these very same Pacers, they had a 2-1 lead in a best-of-five, got drilled in Indianapolis in Game 4 and then had to hang on for dear life in an epic double-overtime game highlighted by Reggie Miller’s 35-foot bank shot at the regulation buzzer.
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From there, though the Nets were a closeout machine:
Up 3-1 on Charlotte in the ’02 East semis, they won Game 5.
Up 3-2 on Boston in the ’02 East finals, they won Game 6.
Up 3-2 on Milwaukee in the ’03 East quarters, they won Game 6.
Up 3-0 on Boston in the ’03 East semis, they won Game 4.
Up 3-0 on Detroit in the ’03 East finals, they won Game 4.
Up 3-0 on the Knicks in the ’04 East quarters, they won Game 4.
When those Nets smelled it, they seized it. It became a point of pride among the team. Six straight closeout wins is a lot harder to accomplish in real time than it seems like in retrospect. But those Nets wore that ability like a crown.
“We feel like once we know we can take care of business, we’re going to take care of business,” Kerry Kittles said in 2003. “The longer you let a team hang around in a series the more chances they have to do something that hurts you: get hot, get confident, get on a roll. Better to do everything you can to advance as early as you can.”
Twenty years later, that’s what the Knicks took with them to the Fieldhouse Friday night, hoping for a few weeks off. Even if would really only be a couple of days.
