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 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.
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.
He had a little swelling. It's nothing serious. It's called old age. But we got to make sure we get that swelling down.
I'm sure that we're going to see everybody against Dirk, like we have the other four games.
I'm not sure Nellie could tell me anything I don't already know about Pop's camps.
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.
It's the way we play. More than assists, we want to make sure our players move. We're really a different team.
This series is not over. We've been in that position (down 0-2) before and we have a lot of respect for what they do throughout the game and see why they are one of the top teams in the Western Conference.
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 don't care how we win. We'll take it however we can get it.
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.