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
I thought we were a little more physical with them. We seemed like we were apologizing for being on the court in the first half.
We had a little talk with the team at halftime and they seemed to respond.
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.
I'm so happy we went through that little period that we went through, because it seems to have brought our team closer together.
Some of our players have made fun of our charge drill. But when you see them taking more charges in the game, it doesn't seem so silly.
He can't seem to get it fully healed.
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.
Even the times we were in their face, they still seemed to make some shots. Our season is not over ... but we know where we are going to finish now. The only thing that really matters is to get guys healthy mentally and physically.
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.
I'm not going to do what I did last year. He's been on me about how I managed his minutes last year and he seems to think that that had an effect on him going into the first round. So Coach is going to accommodate him.
It's not even so much 2-0 for us, it's just trying to play this game like there's no tomorrow. When we do that, we seem to play better, we seem to play more focused, and that's the only way you can play against Memphis.
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.
I was concerned about this game. Byron Scott has done as good a job as anybody in the league, and they have that team in playoff contention.
I thought this was a gutsy performance by our team. Cleveland really jumped out on us and put us in a big hole and our team responded in the second half. Our third quarter defense was pretty special.