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
Are they tired of what? What have we done? It's a hundred days to the Finals right now. This is what the NBA season is about. It's not about having three days off between a game or anything like that. This is the nuts and bolts of the NBA season. Your body doesn't feel as good, you fight a little fatigue, you have some injuries and nobody cares about injuries.
It's a game we've got to go to San Antonio and play. Then we have to come back and play another game (against Charlotte on Friday). I think the big swing games will be in April. I think there's too much of the season left to call this a swing game.
They have two really terrific players in Shaq and Wade.
It's been a pretty fierce competition at center. If today was the first regular-season game, he would be my first center off the bench.
I've never really gotten excited about games too much in February. But at the same time, obviously the guys are doing a lot of positive things on the court. You'd be crazy not to think so.
It's those guys reading each other, Damp getting in the right spot and our guards making passes and getting him the ball. Spacing is a key. You can't get anybody the ball if three people are standing next to him.
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.
He's doing some light shooting, moving around better, a lot of pool work. He's looking good. It's just a matter of when we can get him back out on the practice court and him having the confidence to shift, cut, push off. He had a pretty bad sprain, but he's doing really well. He's ahead of schedule.
It means a lot. Those are two guys who obviously can be starting. Damp's been a starter and Stack's been a starter, so hopefully, we can get those guys matched up on some of the other team's second-team players. We like to go to Damp, and we went to him tonight - and he delivered. He's been playing really hard.
Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone who was affected by this tragedy,
You're not always going to get a double-double, but you want him to play with intensity and not get so many cheap fouls, showing some emotion.
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.
This gives our assistant coaches a chance to show what they can really do. Basically we're down to about eight guys in the rotation. It's not like we have two at each position. We're just trying to make adjustments.
He's out for an extended period of time. We've lost an important part of our rotation.