BOSTON -- Jason Kidd, as dignified and professional as basketball players come, couldn't resist.

His team was supposed to be dead and buried, unable to recover from the biggest fourth quarter collapse in NBA playoff history. They were supposed to be headed back to New Jersey, down 3-1 in the best-of-seven Eastern finals and looking forward to their final extinction Wednesday night in Game 5.

So after the Nets survived another frantic fourth-quarter Celtics rally to win 94-92 and regain home-court advantage, Kidd stared at the dejected Boston crowd and flashed a simple gesture: Two fingers on one hand, two on the other.

The message? This series is all tied up. And the next three games are going to be heated.

"You try to win with grace and dignity, but sometimes you get tired of being humble," Kidd said. "You get tired of hearing (the Celtics) chit-chat. Sometimes you've got to speak out and let it go because you feel better."

So that's what Kidd did. It was a complete 180 from 48 hours earlier, when Kidd and the Nets sat stunned after New Jersey lost a 21-point fourth quarter lead and emptied out of the visitor's locker room in less than 30 minutes.

	Bouncing Back
	After one of the worst fourth-quarter performances in NBA history Saturday, the Nets picked it up a little on Monday. New Jersey's starters scored 14 points in the fourth quarter of Game 4 after totaling just five points in the last quarter of Game 3, making nearly half their shots and even hitting a 3-pointer.
		Game 3	Game 4
	Points	5	14
	FG-FGA	1-15	5-12
	3-pt. FG	0-8	1-2
	Pt. diff.	-21	-2

On Monday, that same locker room was filled with laughter. Jokes. Screaming. Yelling. And confident faces.

The main reason? Resiliency. Heart. Determination.

Sure they played better fourth-quarter defense than two nights ago and sure they made more shots, but the fact remains the Nets just don't quit.

When Reggie Miller hit his buzzer-beating 3-pointer to send the decisive Game 5 of the first round to overtime, the Nets didn't give up. When Miller ended that overtime with a thunderous dunk that sent the game to yet another overtime, they still didn't quit.

Against Charlotte, when Kidd knocked heads with David Wesley and had to play Game 4 with a right eye that was nearly swollen shut, Kidd scored 24 points, to go with 11 rebounds and eight assists. He didn't quit.

And here in Boston, when the overwhelming buzz was that the Nets couldn't survive Saturday's disaster, well, you get the picture.

Wrote one New Jersey columnist before Game 4: "The Celtics may have come back from 26 points, but the Nets have overcome 26 years."

It was the reason that even before tip-off Monday, Nets coach Byron Scott had a quiet confidence about him, telling reporters he expected his team to play well. He's no dummy. He saw his team laughing, joking around and knew the aftershocks of Saturday were gone.

And after Monday's game, he looked like a polished coach who knows, understands and believes in his team.

"For all you people that doubted us and said this series was over, you do not understand that you are dealing with a team that has a lot of heart, a lot of desire," Scott said after Monday's 94-92 win. "Before the game was over, I told our guys we were going back to Jersey with this series tied at two."

All along, New Jersey's goal in Boston was to just get one. The Celtics were undefeated at the FleetCenter in their last 10 games and Scott just wanted to come away with one victory.

"Either we're really, really good or really, really stupid that we could just forget (about Game 3) and go out there and play a great game tonight," Richard Jefferson said. "We just came out and played aggressive."

No more so than in the fourth quarter, when the Celtics, urged on by their crowd, erased an eight-point deficit. Unlike Saturday, when the Nets looked scared out of their minds and folded, they tightened up on defense (Kidd drew three offensive fouls) and hit clutch shots.

"We were the same guys that we were in Game 3 it was just a matter of us knocking down shots, us being aggressive instead of passive," Kidd said. "There is no better way to learn than 48 hours ago, we went through the same situation and learned from it."

And because of that lesson, the Nets find themselves in a best-of-three series with two games at the Meadowlands.

"We're supposed to be on Route 93 going home because we're not even supposed to be in this series," Kidd said. "The series is supposed to be over. So you have to give our guys a lot of credit. Now we have a series."

Wayne Drehs is a staff writer for ESPN.com.