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 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.
Three games in four days, playing teams below .500, above .500, it really doesn't matter at this point. Everybody's got schedule stuff. The schedule is not a problem. We haven't played well since the All-Star break, all right? We have not played well since the All-Star break.
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 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 were not very good for the first three-and-a-half quarters, but between the fourth quarter and overtime we outscored them, 41-22. There's something unique about this team.
We stepped up big defensively in the fourth quarter. We were fortunate to get away from them.
They had a great start to the game. They came out and really tried to throw a knockout punch on us. Fortunately, we were able to withstand it, come back and get our defense set and play some pretty good defense against a high-scoring team in the second, third and fourth quarters.
A very disappointing loss. We played a short stretch there in the fourth quarter a little bit. But other than that, we didn't play well at all again tonight and that's what concerns me.
I thought Damp (Erick Dampier) really shut down a lot of their penetrations in the fourth quarter. He got a couple of blocks, rebounds and I thought he was the reason we won the game.
Overall it was a good team effort and we were fortunate enough to be able to rest some guys in the fourth quarter.
If the commissioner changed the schedule and you had to play three or four games in a row, championship teams still find a way to win. So we don't use tired as an excuse. We didn't deserve to win. We weren't very efficient offensively. And give their defense credit. They did a good job of limiting Dirk and Josh's looks late in the game. They have a lot of pride in their locker room.
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 sure that we're going to see everybody against Dirk, like we have the other four games.
We just made a few shots and got going pretty well. I'm happy with our hustle, I'm happy with our play, but we're not world beaters.