Casey, Kidd have earned coaching stripes
The night Dwane Casey and Jason Kidd first squared off as NBA coaches, sports pundit Bill Simmons, then a highly paid ESPN columnist and head of its former Grantland vanity site, tweeted his thoughts on a coaching matchup he found underwhelming.
“Dwane Casey vs. Jason Kidd is a tic-tac-toe match for the ages,” Simmons tweeted on that November night in 2013.
The riff was flippant and dismissive, and meant to draw laughs at the coaches’ expense.
But this Saturday’s Raptors-Bucks playoff opener pitting Casey, the Raptors’ all-time wins leader, against Kidd, the NBA’s Eastern Conference coach of the month for March, isn’t a joke for the men on the sidelines.
The pair have a shared past as colleagues and rivals. Kidd played point guard and Casey served as an assistant on the Dallas Mavericks squad that toppled LeBron James’ Miami Heat to win an NBA title in 2011. And, in 2014, they met in the first round of the playoffs, with Kidd’s Brooklyn Nets outlasting Casey’s Raptors over seven games.
But with a fresh series starting Saturday, Casey insists his history with Kidd means little.
“I’ve known Jason and I respect him as a coach,” Casey said during Thursday afternoon’s media briefing. “It’s not Dwane Casey vs. Jason Kidd. It’s the Bucks vs. the Raptors . . . We can have all the knowledge in the world but at the end of day guys have to go out there and get it done.”
The Raptors didn’t show much mercy to their coach’s former pupil this season, winning three of four games by an average margin of 14.7 points.
But entering this year’s playoffs the Raptors expect Milwaukee to concoct novel ways to slow down DeMar DeRozan, who averaged 22.3 points in three games against the Bucks. Eric Hughes worked with DeRozan as a Raptors assistant before following Kidd to Brooklyn in 2014.
“I worked with Eric Hughes day one when I became a Toronto Raptor,” DeRozan said Thursday. “So he may he feel like he’s got some schemes . . . up his sleeve for me.”
And where Simmons ridiculed both coaches for their tactical acumen three seasons ago, others take them seriously.
Casey guided the Raptors to their fourth straight playoff appearance this season, and a recent ESPN panel ranking the NBA’s 30 head coaches placed Casey eighth. Kidd has won conference coach of the month three times over four seasons, and steered the Bucks to a playoff berth despite losing young star Jabari Parker to a torn ACL in February.
In Parker’s absence the Bucks leaned more heavily on Giannis Antetokounpo, the six-foot-11 swingman who creates mismatches at four positions.
But Casey says Kidd does more for the Bucks than just direct his team to hand the ball to their best player. When the Bucks defeated the Raptors 101-94 in early March, Casey credited a coach who had his club playing fast, smart, tough basketball.
“Sometimes you can be young and not understand the moment and Jason has done a good job of getting identity for this them to play hard.”