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 just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. We're still firm that they're not going to come back until they're ready. And they're not ready. We probably won't have them back in the next game or two.
We just had to make some points about it. We've got to play our best basketball to win Game 1.
We were lethargic physically and mentally. We didn't show up. We didn't have that juice that we normally have off the bench.
We won it with our defense, which gave me some ammunition. We didn't score much in the fourth quarter, but neither did they. To hold them to 18 points, that's the only way we could win.
Both of those guys are out indefinitely. I trusted some different situations (before), but now I'll bring them back when I want to.
Boy, the more you watch them on film, the scarier it gets. It's going to be a very, very tough series.
We've had a pretty good year up to this point. So we don't want to let all of that go down the drain because we got four guys injured.
We've had some guys out for long periods of time. We've got to whip those guys back in shape. We're waiting on (Keith) Van Horn to come back, which we think he can come back in about a week to 10 days. Hopefully, that other series will stretch to seven games.
We'll just take this victory any way we can get it. There's still another level for the Mavericks to go to. We're just not there yet.
Tonight we needed a good start and that set the tempo for the rest of the game.
We had to get this game behind us for a lot of reasons. We hadn't played well this year against Lakers, and Kobe's been averaging 50 points on us. We didn't want that to happen again.
We had to get this game behind us for a lot of different reasons. We hadn't played particularly well this year against this team.
We had to get more physical on him in the second half.
We had three of our top scorers shoot 12-for-40 from the field, and that won't happen many nights. We were really fortunate to win this game.