Daily Download: January 30, 2024

Is Luka better than Dirk?

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Right on time. Look at that. We are ninety seven on the Freak.
We're the home of the Dallas Mavericksand also inside Sports Medicine with doctor
TiO. Sorry, Elle and uh. We are these games and we're proud
to do it. And it alsogives us access to big name guests,
and we have one right now.It is time to talk to the head
coach of the Dallas Mavericks, misterJason Kidd. We got your coach my

(00:22):
birthday brother. Oh you guys arebirthday brothers March twenty third, Me and
Ja Kid. He's in far betterfitness than you. Okay, thanks,
what's up, coach? Coming offa nice victory just last night at the
AAC one nine over the Orlando Magic. I got to start with one fastball,

(00:42):
Derek Lively? Is this nose broken? A good? Great question?
I don't think so. He tooka nice hit to the nose. You
had to cut shot. Big freagoes for us. He was a big
part of our success last night comingback. So I'm going to go and

(01:03):
say it's he has a nice bumpon his nose, but not broken,
Okay, because I saw him withthe free throw line and it looked like
there was that bump that you mentioned, and I don't know how many how
those bumps pop up when it's notbroken. But he's seeing a tough,
tough kid man as he's proven tobe all year. But he goes in
with the Kleenex up the nose andkind of gets the alley. You've dunk.

(01:26):
That sort of ice is the game. How how happy are we with
the evolution of young Derek Lively.We're very excited just understanding at the beginning
of the season, just you know, the unknown nineteen year old kid played
at Duke, just understanding that couldhe pick up things quickly? He's answered

(01:49):
that question. Could he you know, played with Luca and Kai. He's
answered that question. So he's beena big part of our success. And
again I think we're very fortunate tobe able to get him in the draft.
He's a stud, no doubt.It's a great win, great third
quarter. And I saw you onthe podium last night, and I don't
want to say a problem with theteam, but it's a roller coaster.

(02:09):
Man. Some days you guys looklike, you know, you should be
title contenders, and some days thedefense just isn't there. How hard is
it? Because you said last nightthe defense is determined by effort and energy.
How hard is it to get themodern NBA player to maintain the level
of effort required to, you know, to play great defense in the league,

(02:29):
which I do think this team iscapable of. Well, I think
it's it's hard. I think forany professional athlete, it's hard to be
consistent. And I think that's whatwe all fight for as coaches, as
players, is to be consistent.It's there's a human element to sport.

(02:49):
And right now, with the healthof our team, you know, we've
been hit with a lot of injuries. We have guys that are playing a
lot more minutes that they normally wouldnot be playing, and so we're stretching
guys and we're asking guys to domore until we can get healthy. And
so but again also at age,we have player a few young players,

(03:13):
you know, who are trying tolearn what it takes to be consistent.
And again, the more time they'regoing to be on the floor, the
better chances of learning how to dothat. And right now, with the
injuries, we've got a lot ofyoung players playing. Coach Gett the MAVs
joining us here on a ninety sevento one coach. Is there a level
of expectation going into a game likelast night when you're facing a team that

(03:38):
statistically is the worst three point threepoint shooting team in the league and they
come out and just light it upfrom beyond the arc? Is there an
amount of kind of surprise or shockthat, Oh, my gosh, how
are these guys doing this? Nowwe have to adjust, maybe face them
up a little bit tighter beyond atthe perimeter. Is that kind of made

(04:00):
you what got you guys in alittle bit of trouble in the first half?
Or Am I completely off base?No? I think one. Orlando
is a team that doesn't shoot thethree well. But for whatever reason,
right now, we seem to picka player and they're they're shooting thirty seven
percent, and they seemed to makemake them all when they shoot them.

(04:21):
And I think last night's game planwas to make them shoot threes. We
were in the same situation in Orlandoagain. The game plan is to make
them, you know, shoot threes, and they made them in Orlando in
the first half, and we askedthe guys to trust the game plan.

(04:41):
Came out in the second half andthen again took control of it. It's
kind of the same thing that happenedlast night. We believe that the analytics
will, you know, match ourgame plan, and it did in the
second half. Well, we helda team to twelve points. They shot
the ball well in the first half. But there's a thing called not panicking,

(05:03):
and I thought the group didn't panic. They made shots. We continued
to keep playing and eventually they cameback to earth in that third quarter where
they didn't make those shots in thein the second half, and we did.
And so again we took full advantageof that third quarter puts in a

(05:24):
position to win that game. Maverick'shead coach Jason Kidd joining us on the
downbeat Coach last night, I wasthe celebrity guest for MAVs karaoke cam,
so and that happened. You know, right after a big run, you
could really feel the energy rising inthe building. I don't know what should
get more credit for the big runin the second half. Would it be
my karaoke camp performance or your halftimeadjustments and maybe any type of halftime speech

(05:48):
that you might have given the team. No, I think the players are
going to say ye're karaoke. Whatwas the reason why we went on that
big run? So you might haveto do it again on Saturday. I'll
be there. Yeah, I canhandle that. Sorry, I was Milwaukee.
I'm in Oh yeah, I'm curiousabout that we were talking about because
Kevin did you know he was onthe jumbo tron last night representing the station.

(06:11):
Have you read a situation where you'rein the team huddle, you got
the whiteboard on, you know,on and trying to draw up a play
and you see one of your guysthat's you know, rubber neck and around
looking at the jumbo tron, watchingsome feature that he's part of, and
you have to go, hey,lively head on the whiteboard. Does that
ever happen to you? Uh?Yeah, it happens a lot. You
know, guys can move, youknow, their focus if something's funny it's

(06:35):
happening on a jumbo tron. Youjust make sure that they understand what the
play is or they'll ask as theyget up, hey what's the play?
What am I supposed to do?So you know then that they were paying
attention to something on the jumble onthe jump tron. It just shows that
they're no matter how old they are. They're all just big kids, and

(06:56):
that's on TV. That's awesome.All right. Last thing from last night,
Well I got some fun stuff foryou. But part of the job
obviously is quick decisions that you doand don't make, and sometimes they work
and don't work. Last night,two timeouts in the pocket, Tim had
the ball, we didn't call one, and Tim and Luca kind of in
the heat of battle, obviously prettyfired up. Do you think is it
something in hindsight you think a timeoutshould have been called there? Yeah,

(07:17):
you know, this is the beautyof a game of basketball. I think
we all we're talked at some pointin Cyo or in high school or in
college that when you know you havetimeouts, that you can burn one anytime
that you're in trouble. Unfortunately wedid. We didn't do that last night.

(07:38):
Again, at the highest level,we are teaching the rules of the
game, and unfortunately that happened lastnight. But again no one panicked.
We found a way to come backfrom that mistake and won the game.
But there's always teaching moments. I'vegiven the guy, especially late in the
game. You see players get fouled, Orlando gives them credit they didn't foul.

(08:03):
Timmy traveled, and so yes,we could call the time out.
Yes, the guy who had theball could have called a timeout, and
so it didn't. So we'll learnfrom that, and the next time we
lear in that situation, we'll takea time out quick two parter to follow
up on that. In that numberone, in that instance, whose responsibility

(08:24):
is it ultimately to make the callfor the timeout? And number two even
since it even though it wasn't called, you were probably pretty thankful to have
the two considering the difficulty you werepresented by getting those inbound passes at the
end of the game. Yeah,I think to be able to, you
know, understand lake game. Youknow you're going to get fouled, and

(08:46):
so give Orlando credit. They didn'tfoul. Timmy lost balance and the best
part of it is he ate theball. He didn't throw the ball where
they can get an easy basket,so they had to take the ball out
and then sometimes there is a difficultyof getting the ball in. But I
thought we did a good job ofgetting the ball to our best free throw

(09:07):
shooter and he had a rhythm andthat was Luca. But understanding, you
know, in Atlanta, we hadthe same situation. We throw the ball
into the stands late in the game, we missed layups. You know,
it happens, and so I thinkinstead of being a negative, we learn
from it, and as the seasongoes on and the game become a little

(09:28):
bit more important, we'll be betterin those situations. Coach tell us about
seventy three points, and if you'veever seen anyone who's gifted offensively as young
Luka Doncice, Yeah, when youtalk about what he did in Atlanta,
a lot of us have never seenanything like that or been a part of
that, you know, when youtalk about Kobe or you know, players

(09:50):
like MJ going for fifty to fiftyfive or sixty three. To see it
in person, to be a partof it look like shoot around it.
It was very you know, seamlessand easy. There was no stress involved
in what he was doing, andyou could see early on he was going

(10:11):
to go. And so for usit was a matter of how, you
know, how can we get umrested, How can we use him on the
floor to get someone else to youknow, carry some of the low But
he clearly it was a bounce backgame at a very very high level.
How much of that performance do youthink was Luca hopefully or maybe subconsciously silencing

(10:35):
all the noise that happened that thatcame forth from the Phoenix game and some
of the negative reaction that he hadby getting the fan thrown out, and
how much of it was just allplanets aligned in the right way. He
was absolutely on and and and itwas just one of those crazy wild nights
that just adds to the resume ofthis kid. Yeah, I think any

(10:56):
time he's questioned or you know,if there's something that is not positive,
I think he's always responded in apositive way. I've said this before and
I'll say it. You know,for as long as I'm here, he
can't take this young man for granted. He's better than Dirk. He's in
the in the in the atmosphere ofMJ the best to ever do it,

(11:22):
Lebron Kobe. And so just toappreciate what this young man is doing adage
at twenty four is something that Dallashas never seen. And that said this,
internally he is he's better than Dirk. He does things that Dirk could
never do. And now it's youknow, the opportunity of getting the right

(11:43):
people around him to ultimately win achampionship. But he plays the game the
right way. He gets double teamthe most in the league, and he
relies on his teammates. He trustshis teammates, and so again, to
be able to have the opportunity tocoach one of the best players in the
world is an honor. And rightnow we're just trying to make sure that

(12:07):
we don't we don't kill him.I mean we're playing him forty six minutes
forty three minutes last night. Wegot to get healthy, and we got
to get you know, back togetting him out of the game so that
he is strong going into the fourthquarter. You just said two times that
Luca is better than Dirk. Dirkwon a title and had been to two

(12:31):
Do you feel comfortable saying that ona guy that has not made the even
made the finals yet? Yeah,MJ is the same way. MJ didn't
make it, didn't didn't make itinto his thirties. This young man is
twenty four and is breaking all therecords that standing in front of him,

(12:52):
and he's a winner and his ultimategoal is to win a championship and he
will get there and not just youknow, win one, but he will
win multiple when it's all said anddone, And so our job is to
put him in that position and alsoput his teammates in that position to help
him achieve that goal. He's apleasure to watch. I know he racks

(13:16):
up some teas because he gets workedup with the refs. But part of
me thinks, no one touch changeanything about Luca. So I don't even
think if he's not running hot,maybe it doesn't lead to these performances that
are just breaking records every time hetakes the floor. I know you talk
to him about that managing his emotions, but is that even dangerous to even
threaten to change anything about you becausehe's playing so good? No, I

(13:39):
think, you know, I agree. You know, sometimes the emotions get
the best of all of us,and you know, and I think sometimes
we can channel our emotions to helpus in the dog days, or we're
fatigued, we're trying to get usgoing, we're trying to draw someone into
a confrontation. Times he use theofficials. But I think when Lucas playing

(14:03):
his best is when you see himsmiling. I said it after the seventy
three points in Atlanta. He wassmiling, and he was having a good
time he you know, and whenhe is smiling, he is at his
best and he's happy and he's notworried about those three other guys out there.
When you talk about the officials,and sometimes he does, you know,

(14:28):
get into it with the officials.He you know, he's one of
the hardest players too, official becausehe has the ball ninety eight percent of
the time he does get hit.It's kind of like Lebron and Shack.
You know, when you have theball that much, it's hard for the
officials to call a foul every everytime. And you look at last night,
he shoots over twenty three throws andso I think, you know,

(14:50):
as he gets to understand the balanceof when calls are going to you know,
help and when to just let thingsgo, I think that's again when
he's going to get even better atwhat he's doing. We talk about that
a lot with Michael Parsons, likehe rushes the pastor every time, and
a lot of cowboys vans like it. He never gets they never call holding.
It's like, well, the ratsaren't going to call it every time

(15:11):
because he's rushing the passer on almostevery play. Last question before we let
you go and get on with yourday, coach, how close are we
to getting Kyrie back? That's agreat question. Hopefully soon. You know,
we traveled to Minnesota this afternoon,so we'll see where he stands with
his help. But I think withthe rehab everything, he had a great

(15:33):
workout last night, so hopefully it'sthis week. All right. We appreciate
the time this morning, and we'llbe at cheering you on obviously all of
our games there on this station iswhere the home of the MAVs. And
if you ever need me for somekaraoke cam magic, you know, just
let me know. Happy to makeit happen. We'll come Saturday. Yeah,
that's you're coming back Saturday. Yeah, that's the plan, you want

(15:54):
to know. With with Kevin onkaraoke, I'm going to keep this going.
Who knew? That's all it took. All right, coach, have
a great day and good luck inMinnesota tomorrow night. I appreciate it,
guys. Alright, thanks coach,Jason Kidd. There he goes