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
Tonight we needed a good start and that set the tempo for the rest of the game.
We're really striving to be the top dog in June, not February.
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.
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'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 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 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.
We had to get more physical on him in the second half.
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 were lethargic physically and mentally. We didn't show up. We didn't have that juice that we normally have off the bench.
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.
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.
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 have three centers and none of those guys can do any cameos at small forward or point guard, so that leaves the rest of the guys. We need them to play now.