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
The players challenged themselves to pick it up defensively. We didn't shoot the ball particularly well tonight. We had a good team effort. We had a lot of contribution from a lot of different people.
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.
This team doesn't like losing one in a row.
This was a disgusting game for us tonight. We deserved to lose. Kobe was spectacular and we had no answer for him. You have to take your hat off to him.
The reason we won the game tonight is because of the fans. They are the reason we won the game tonight. They stayed with us the whole game. Nobody was booing or questioning the players. I can go on and over and over about the game, but thank you fans.
We're much more mature than we were then. Obviously I think we're better defensively. We're much more physical than what we were last year. We move the ball a lot better. We're tougher-minded.
We thought our first-quarter defense really set the tone. We worked on a lot of stuff this morning and we were fortunate to have some carry over.
We thought our defense and offense was good in the first half, but in the second we struggled. We had one turnover in the first and 10 in the second half. That is something we will take a look at.