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.
We're disappointed with the way we finished the game. Our defense wasn't very good tonight. We gave up 65 points in the second half. We had a lot of things go wrong defensively.
We seemed to have a lot of energy tonight. I gave them (two days) off and they gave me one back by responding with energy and concentration pretty much throughout the whole game. It's pretty rare for us to play that long of a stretch of good basketball.
It was a gutsy win for us tonight. That's a scrappy team over there. They've been playing some very good basketball and we don't take anything for granted. (Stackhouse) stepped up tonight and I thought Devin really came on and gave us a big lift in overtime.
They're booing the man out there, and I'm not sure why that's going on. But he wanted to win, and I gave Stack a big hug after the game, because he tried to beat them with his scoring and his assists and his defense.
Jason wasn't 100 percent for us tonight, but he played big and gave us some offensive punch.
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.
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 got so much going on around here, I don't look at that.
We are trying to win a championship. But we're in the first year of implementing a program.
We're going to win as a team. We're going to win when Dirk Nowitzki continues to move forward and Josh Howard and Erick Dampier and Jason Terry give the consistency I'm looking for.
The road wasn't too friendly to us the last time. I'm already getting a bad memory. Hopefully, we'll have a better response on the road overall than the last game and give ourselves a chance to win by playing our system. But we've gone back to some basics that seem to have helped us.