Inside Report: Practice Report — J-Kidd turns 38, Mavs prepare for T-Wolves before long road trip

Earl K. Sneed reports from the Mavericks' Wednesday practice, where point guard Jason Kidd celebrated his 38th birthday as his team prepared for a Minnesota squad to conclude a three-game homestand.

DALLAS — On the day he turned 38 years old, Mavericks point guard Jason Kidd’s teammates say there was something special about him at the team’s practice.

Kidd, the NBA’s fifth-oldest player, immediately sprinted to celebrate his birthday in the locker room — where a cake awaited him — after the practice session came to an end, jokingly avoiding a pack of media members along the way. That’s the same energetic spirit Kidd showed during the team’s Wednesday practice, according to center Tyson Chandler and coach Rick Carlisle, as the future Hall of Famer played alongside teammates with much younger legs and showed why he’s one of the game’s all-time greats.

“He looks very young,” Carlisle said of Kidd. “I don’t know where he’s getting it, but he’s found the Fountain of Youth somewhere. It’s awesome.”

“He turned 32 again? Brian [Cardinal] said that he turned 32 again, so he might as well just stay there,” Chandler joked when asked about Kidd turning 38. “He looked great. I think any time it’s your birthday you have a little extra energy. He made a couple of no-look finger rolls. It was his birthday, so he was making every shot. He looked good out there.”

The legendary lead guard’s elite play at the age of 37, which figures to continue into the next year of his life, even got Mavericks leading scorer Dirk Nowitzki questioning whether he could play into his late 30s.

“He’s amazing to me,” Nowitzki said of Kidd. “He practices every day, he never misses a game and he plays hard at both ends. He’s our motor at both ends of the floor. He’s amazing, so I’ll just have to wait and see how I feel at 38, if I get there. I signed on till I’m 36, and I guess I’ll just take it year by year after that.”

But not even the birthday boy was exempt from Wednesday’s intense practice, as the Mavericks directed their focus to the hardwood and preparation for the Kevin Love-less Minnesota Timberwolves squad that will enter the American Airlines Center on Thursday night.

With the matchup against Minnesota the last before a 10-day, six-game road trip — the longest of the season — Carlisle emphasized to his team the importance of cleaning up their play and building off Saturday night’s 101-73 win over Golden State. And with Love not traveling to Big D due to a left groin injury, Carlisle will look for his players to come out energized against an opponent minus the league’s top rebounder.

“[Love] has become a high-impact player this year. And I don’t know his situation, but if he doesn’t play they’ll have another high-energy guy running around … and then they’ll be hard to guard because they’ll be smaller,” Carlisle said. “So, we’ll see, but again, it’s not about who plays, it’s about how we play.”

And with limited time for the Mavericks to prepare when the road trip kicks off, due to the hectic travel schedule and little to no breaks in between games, the coach and his players know just how valuable Wednesday’s practice time will essentially be when the tough stretch begins. Especially with the Mavericks’ full arsenal of healthy bodies expected to be ready to go for Thursday night’s game after forward Shawn Marion practiced both Tuesday and Wednesday with a brace on his sprained right wrist following his one-game absence with the injury.

“We’re working on being healthier and certainly we’re on track, if we can get through today and tomorrow. But there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. We seemed to get through today OK, but you never assume anything. The last time we played in Minnesota, the next morning Peja [Stojakovic] woke up and his neck was hurting. So, knock on wood and hope things go well with Mother Nature. And again, it’s an important game tomorrow, then we get on a plane on Friday and we’re off into the wild blue yonder …. This is our last what I would consider a quality practice until next Tuesday in Phoenix,” Carlisle explained.

“We’ve got to have this one tomorrow before we go on the long road trip,” Nowitzki added. “It’s the longest road trip of the year, so there’s a lot of back-to-backs in there, four games in five nights, so it’s full of challenges. But I think we’re ready. We had two good days of practices where we really went at it. This is gonna be our last practice time for awhile. We’re not gonna practice much on this trip, so I think it was a good couple of days and it should help us.”

Note: The Timberwolves-Mavericks matchup will tip off at 7:30 p.m. CT, airing locally on Fox Sports Southwest. Great seats are still available and tickets can be purchased by visiting the American Airlines Center box office, logging on to Mavs.com or by calling 214-747-MAVS (6287).

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