"News flash, folks: Liars tend to lie.

So discount what a disgraced ref claims, or what The Association officially says, or even what honest-to-a-fault Mavericks owner Mark Cuban tweets. All anybody needed to understand going into Game 2 on Tuesday at AAC was two numbers.

Two. And 16.

Coming in, Dallas had won exactly two of the 18 playoff games where referee Danny Crawford had been involved. A basketball statistician with way too much free time and mathematical acumen determined there was a five in 10,000 chance of this occurring naturally. I am pretty sure Cuban has a better chance of being named Godfather of a little Stern than of such a statistical anomaly being accidental.

So Tuesday was filled with talk and talk and more talk of Crawford -- Why does he stick it to the Mavs? Would all of this talk serve as double-secret probation for Crawford and thus benefit Dallas? Why didn't the NBA just manipulate ref assignments -- and little talk about the odds of Jason Kidd unleashing his very inner and mostly hidden Larry Bird in consecutive games, which had to be statistically close to zero?

Guess what turned into a game changer?

JKidd, not DCraw.

The Old Man added scoring to his usual array of influences on a game and thereby helped Dallas to a 101-89 victory against Portland, a 2-0 series lead and rare victory No. 3 in a Crawford-officiated playoff game. Not bad for an old man, not bad at all.

"This year he has made it a point, 'You have to guard me.' It makes us a better team," Mavericks guard Jason Terry said.

I admit when JKidd scored 24 in Game 1 I figured that to be a gift from the sports gods, a once a series anomaly unlikely to be repeated. He had hardly been lethal in his younger days, and age rarely helps a jumper. So banking on his 38-y.o. bones repeating that feat seemed like sure fail."