Plenty of praise for Kidd’s club

MILWAUKEE — When Jason Kidd left Brooklyn to coach the Bucks last summer, he wasn’t focused on making the playoffs.

“I think we were talking about how we were going to get guys to play hard,” Kidd said Sunday afternoon.

But after the Bucks won just 15 games a season ago, they clinched a trip to the postseason Sunday thanks to a 9673 rout of the Nets, Kidd’s old team, at BMO Harris Bradley Center.

The win capped what has been an impressive coaching job by Kidd and his staff, taking a team filled with young players — led by promising secondyear pro Giannis Antetokounmpo — to a 4040 record with two games to go in the regular season.

“I think it feels great for those guys in the locker roomto be able to obtain a goal, and that was to make the playoffs,” said Kidd, who became the first coach to take two different teams to the playoffs in his first two seasons on the sidelines. “But the journey doesn’t stop there.”

Most didn’t think the journey would go this way for the Bucks in Kidd’s first season. He inherited a team that had theworst record in the NBA last season andwas expected to be led by Antetokounmpo and No. 2 overall pick Jabari Parker.

But even with Parker being lost for the season with a torn ACL and talented but enigmatic center Larry Sanders eventually being waived, Kidd managed to lead the Bucks to one of the biggest turnarounds in the league.

He imported the aggressive defensive style he employed over the second half of last season with the Nets to Milwaukee, where the Bucks have the kind of long, athletic roster perfectly suited to run it. In an ironic twist, Brook Lopez, who finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds, passed Kidd for fourth alltime in points scored in Nets history with a corner jumper in the third quarter.

“He shoots a lot more than I did,” Kidd quipped. “I wish I had the green light he had.”

Lopez, who could become a free agent this summer, now only trails Buck Williams, Richard Jefferson and Vince Carter in franchise history.

“That’s an honor,” Lopez said. “[ Kidd’s] a great player, a Hall of Famer, no question. It was good to have him in the building for it, I guess.”