Avery Johnson
Avery Johnson
Avery Johnsonis an American basketball coach who is currently the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide men's basketball team. Johnson spent 16 years in the National Basketball Association as a player, and subsequently served as the head coach of two NBA teams: the Dallas Mavericks and New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets. He led the Mavericks to their first NBA Finals appearance and to three consecutive 50+ win seasons. During his playing days, Johnson was known as the "Little General" for his...
ProfessionBasketball Player
Date of Birth25 March 1969
CityNew Orleans, LA
We're really striving to be the top dog in June, not February.
I wasn't trying to rally the team by getting ejected. I think it was more just a difference of opinion. We were dealing with things the whole game, and we thought that we had a legitimate beef with the way they were playing Dirk. I guess we were wrong.
You just play it out, because you're just trying to win as many games as you can. Wherever you land in the playoffs, you've got to go out and play anyway. I just couldn't see myself doing anything but giving 1,000 percent on the sideline.
Yeah, that puts them at an advantage I would say. So what I'll try to do is when he puts his four guys out there, I'll try to have combinations. I'll try to play Steve and Dirk together since they played together. And maybe I'll play Yao and T-Mac. So maybe we at least have four guys out there . . . two and two. And then throw in somebody else. . . . Maybe Kobe (Bryant); he's a whole team himself.
We've been going pretty hard in practice and in the games. It's something we like to do.
We came up short. They got to the free throw line more and they were the aggressors and they deserved the win. We had too many lethargic situations tonight and I need to address that.
We got off to a good start in the first quarter and set the tone for the whole game. I thought our defense was pretty steady...we tried to contest as many shots as we could.
We fought. This was a playoff atmosphere. We wish we'd have been able to match their intensity down the stretch. But we didn't. We just did not execute. We were hesitant. We didn't get to the foul line. We didn't deserve to get there. We didn't make strong enough moves.
We didn't earn our paycheck. We need to give Mark Cuban a rebate, all of us.
We haven't had a guy who can play that kind of defense,
We haven't done anything. We can win 30 games in a row and what does that mean?
Our first quarter defensively really set the tone. We worked on a lot of stuff this morning. They (Atlanta) missed a lot of shots but the defense was better than it was in that last game (against Golden State). We just threw out that last game.
Overall it was a good team effort and we were fortunate enough to be able to rest some guys in the fourth quarter.
We pretty much know where we're going to finish now. The only thing that really matters for us is to get guys healthy mentally and physically.