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'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.
Ron has impacted them. He wants to show he's a dominant player on both ends of the floor. He's playing as good on that left block as I've seen him throughout his career.
You got to be able to go to guys one through 12. We're not afraid to go to D.A. (Darrell Armstrong). We're not afraid to go to D.J. It's a good positive.
I'm so happy we went through that little period, because it seems to have brought our team closer together. Nobody pointed fingers. At the same time, we played against some really good basketball teams that were really hot.
We got off to a good start in the first quarter and set the tone for the whole game. I thought our defense was pretty steady...we tried to contest as many shots as we could.
We thought we were pretty good defensively, for the most part, against one of the tougher teams in the Western Conference. We knew we had to be physical.
We thought we got our defense under us in the first half and kind of set the tone for the rest of the game. We had a little lull defensively in the third quarter, but they're a very good offensive basketball team and they weren't going to come out of the locker room lying down.
I don't think words could describe what that could do for the city. The city has been ravaged. They need some good news. Tourism is a big part of their whole economic structure. Hopefully they can get it pushed through really soon so people can start making plans for it.
Points are hard to come by against Memphis, and it's been that way for everybody because of their tempo ... and their defensive scheme. We've got to place a premium on getting good shots.
We knew it was going to be a dogfight coming in here, playing against a well-coached team. That's the sign of a good team. ... We were kind of on our heels, but we kept battling. It was a gutsy performance by our team.
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.
Tonight we needed a good start and that set the tempo for the rest of the game.
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.
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.