Jason Kidd snatched Miami guard Rod Strickland's pass Saturday and his New Jersey teammates Kerry Kittles and Kenyon Martin took off in a dead sprint. They could have been the St. Louis Rams' Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt running post patterns underneath one of Kurt Warner's throws.

Kidd heaved the ball and it hit Martin in the hands for the easy alley-oop basket. AmericanAirlines Arena spectators were picking up their jaws when Kidd floored the Nets' offense again, finding Kittles on the break for an easy basket that pulled the Nets to within 14-8 midway through the first quarter.

Thirty seconds. That's all Kidd needed to show how he can shine in the transition game. From defense to offense. From the Western Conference's Phoenix Suns to the Eastern Conference's Nets. Those transitions are Kidd's play for the eighth-year point guard.

The more difficult transition for Kidd, the one he kept messing up miserably -- albeit behind closed doors -- is the shift from adored NBA player to doting husband and father. Few people knew the truth until last January when Kidd punched his wife of five years in the face and she phoned the police.

In the weeks that followed it would all come out: how the player who was so selfless on the court was so self-absorbed off it; how Kidd could run an offense smoothly but didn't know how to keep a relationship from foundering.

Twelve months. Kidd will need more time than that to show that he has mastered arguably the most treacherous of all transitions for the high-profile athletes. The jury remains out as to whether Kidd can shift, in the time it takes for the final buzzer to sound, from being respected and revered by the masses to being respectful of and reverent toward his wife.

Making progress

Kidd looks to have made considerable progress. He sees a psychologist regularly even though he has completed his court-ordered therapy sessions. The cover story in the current issue of Sports Illustrated painted his relationship with wife Joumana, a former model, as all sweetness and light.

His second family -- the Nets -- has been a grateful benefactor of a more expansive, expressive Kidd. He is reaching out to his new teammates in a manner in which he was never able to in Dallas or Phoenix.

"You can tell he's at peace with himself," said Heat forward Jimmy Jackson, with whom Kidd feuded when they were teammates in Dallas in the mid-1990s.

When Jackson looked into Kidd's eyes on the court Saturday, "I could see a calmness that wasn't there before."

Kidd stopped knotting his tie and nodded when Jackson's comments were relayed to him.

"I've matured. Things have settled down in my life," Kidd said after the Heat handed the Nets a 90-77 loss.

Though clearly weary of talking about a period of his life he'd just as soon forget, Kidd said he hopes that by talking about his travails he's helping other athletes sidestep his mistakes.

The sports culture doesn't smile on athletes who own up to a weakness. Vulnerabilities are finger food for opponents. They'll attack them with gusto. So it fortifies Kidd every time a player comes forward to comment on how cool it is that he's talking openly about such hush-hush subjects as counseling,

"I've gotten positive feedback from everybody," he said. "Hopefully it will help other people confront their problems."

Jackson looks at Kidd and marvels at his hard-won maturity. After all these years, Kidd finally looks comfortable in his own skin.

"I just think it shows that once you admit to yourself what's going on and come to grips with it, it's easier to talk about it with other people," Jackson said. "Once he got comfortable with himself, the transition of talking about it with other people was easier."

Kidd entered the game as the leading rebounder among point guards with a 7.1 average. Talk about art imitating life.

"He's been everything we thought he'd be and then some," Nets coach Byron Scott said. "He's been a fantastic leader for us. Without a doubt, he's been the (league's) first-half MVP."

That's Most Valuable Player. Kidd knows better than anyone that that shouldn't be confused with Most Valuable Person. He'll spend the rest of his career trying to nullify the difference.