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 hope we're back, as like any Western Conference team that's going to playoffs. But we've got too much work to do.
We didn't want him to play 40, but he felt pretty good and he looked OK.
We are also thrilled to promote Rolando Blackman, one of the all-time Maverick and NBA greats, who brings five years of coaching experience on the player development side, ... Ro also shares in our vision but more than anything he is very loyal. He wants to help bring a championship to Dallas.
Our team is not playing enough of a 48-minute game and that's the disappointing thing. We know it's tough to win road games. This was a hot team team we were playing, give them credit. But you can't play 18-20 minutes of a second half and expect to beat any NBA team.
Our team has made some progress with being proactive on defense. There's a certain mentality where I wanted us to be. ... Forget statistics, forget about how many points we're giving up, field goal percentage, all that stuff - I think our body language is moving in a way that we're trying to be a little more proactive defensively.
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.
Marshall was outstanding tonight because he really competed at a high level. He had to play point guard for almost three quarters and that is not his natural position. We are really excited about what we did in the regular season.
I think we're just going to see how it goes. It all depends who we play.
I went out on a limb for it. I stand behind it. I've done pretty much all that I can do.
I think there's another level for us to go to. We did some good stuff. We did some bad stuff.
I think I'm gifted to do what I'm doing, that this is what I'm here for. I felt like a coach when I was a player. ... In a lot of ways, I know some things are still new to me. But in other ways, I just feel like I've been doing this a lot of time, and a lot of it just comes naturally.
I think I'm gifted to do what I'm doing, that this is what I'm here for.
I sure hope we're different. We seem to have been playing more physical basketball on the defensive end. Again, that was just one of those special games, the guy got on fire and obviously, since that's happened, we're not the team he's scored the most points against.