updated 3:16 a.m. ET May 21, 2004

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - In the most important game of the season, Jason Kidd had one of the worst nights of his career.

Kidd, playing on a bad knee, had the first scoreless playoff game of his career in Detroit’s 90-69 Game 7 victory over New Jersey. He missed all eight of his shots and had seven assists, five rebounds and three steals in 43 minutes.

“I tried to give it everything I had, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough,” Kidd said. “I think we just got frustrated. I think we lost our patience.”

Twenty minutes after the game, Detroit’s Rasheed Wallace still couldn’t believe the stat sheet.

“To hold Jason Kidd without a point is pretty much impossible,” he said. “We knew he would come hard at us in a Game 7, and our guys shut him out. Our guards set the tone for this win, and they did it with defense, not offense.”

Kidd averaged 19.8 points in the Nets’ two runs to the NBA finals, and scored 17 points a game in New Jersey’s first-round sweep of the New York Knicks. Against the Pistons, though, he scored only 71 points in seven games and reached double figures just three times.

“My teammates kept encouraging me to shoot, but the ball didn’t go in,” he said. “There are no excuses. We showed up and we lost.”

Kidd missed significant playing time late in the season with the knee injury, but Nets coach Lawrence Frank wasn’t going to use that as an excuse.

“Jason Kidd is the toughest guy you will ever meet, and if he is able to play, he’s out there without complaining,” Frank said. “He’s a Hall of Fame guard and he does a lot of things for us other than score points.”

Kidd was chosen for the U.S. Olympic team, which will be coached in Athens by Detroit’s Larry Brown, but he doesn’t expect to play. He will be looking into the possibility of knee surgery instead.

“Something has to happen,” he said when asked about possible surgeries.

Brown said that he wasn’t surprised that Kidd ran out of gas in Game 7. He averaged over 48 minutes in the final three games of the series, including a career-high 57 in the triple-overtime Game 5 win.

“We try to get our guards involved a lot, so he had to defend every possession,” Brown said. “Think of the minutes Jason played in this series, and look at what the point differential was when he wasn’t on the floor.”

One of Kidd’s teammates bristled when asked if Kidd’s poor Game 7 cost the Nets the series.

“Anyone who puts this on Jason Kidd is a fool,” Kenyon Martin said. “This team wouldn’t have accomplished anything in the last few years without him.”

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Jim Rogash / Getty Images

Not in his house

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CSN: Rondo's big-game DNA shines  |  Highlights

CSN: You may not see it from start to finish, but when the game — or in this case, postseason life — is on the line, you see just how good Rajon Rondo can be.

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