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
In 1992, when I was out of the league waiting for a job, my dad passed away and my wife was pregnant. People will tell you, 'Oh, I never doubted for a moment.' Well, I beg to differ. I'm a man of faith, but there's a human side of you that wants to doubt.
I'm their motivation. We don't need outside opinion or perceptions to be motivation. I know how we need to play to get to the next level.
I'm not sure Nellie could tell me anything I don't already know about Pop's camps.
These two teams have a lot of pride. Memphis doesn't back down from anybody, and it has not played its best game yet.
I'm glad to get this series over. Obviously, we would have had four swings at it. I'm glad to get it on the first swing. Now it's time for us to try to get some rest and get some bodies healed and get back to practice, because that's my favorite part of this whole deal.
I'm going to think that I won't have him, then hopefully we will.
I'm going to stop saying every time we have games like this that I failed. I've been waiting 79 games to get some internal leadership. I haven't gotten it yet.
I'm not going to do what I did last year. He's been on me about how I managed his minutes last year and he seems to think that that had an effect on him going into the first round. So Coach is going to accommodate him.
I'm not disappointed, but it just didn't work. We'll hopefully do it in the next day or two, so it still may happen.
In my opinion, looking at that game and looking at some of our recent All-Star games, the game was much more serious. Now, they still scored a lot of points. But the games were a little bit more physical from what I can tell.
We obviously have been playing some pretty good basketball. We knew we were on a streak. In my mind you don't think it's ever going to come to an end. When it does it just doesn't feel good.
That first-quarter defense probably was as good as I've seen in a long time. No matter who you do it to, when you hold a team to 10 points in a quarter, that's pretty special.
It's been great. I've been able to smile. But in the back of my mind, I know I've got to watch some film on the Clippers because we play them coming out of the All-Star break. And I know I've got to watch some film on the first half of the season. But I've been able to smile.
It's a natural, because we still have to play some of those teams in the regular season. So we're pulling double duty.