Avery Johnson Quotes (144 Quotes)

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.

I wouldn't say it was expected but it's not acceptable. At the same time, these guys wanted to get it right. It was something we were able to fight through.

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 came into tonight's game trying to cut off some of his passing angles, ... We did not follow the game plan and he just shredded us tonight, shredded us to pieces.

We don't care how we win. We'll take it however we can get it.

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.

He was one of the first coaches that came in and started talking about winning a championship and winning it with defense and don't even make apologies about it. Don't blink. Don't even blink when you talk about it. That's the goal. Don't be ashamed about it, otherwise you're just selling tickets.

Stack was solid, man. Stack was energized. He was ready to play. He was right in his comfort zone tonight. That's what we need from him on both ends. Obviously, he scored a little bit, but nobody will talk about how he battled those guys on defense.

That was one of the reasons why we won that first quarter, ... Doug was running the offense a lot of the time, and his on-the-ball defense is always good.

The more you watch them on film, the scarier it gets. They sit on all your plays. You got to move the ball against them. They can shut down our offense if we don't play well offensively. It's going to be a very, very tough series.

I wasn't trying to rally the team by getting ejected. I think it was more just a difference of opinion. We were dealing with things the whole game, and we thought that we had a legitimate beef with the way they were playing Dirk. I guess we were wrong.

I don't want our team to misconstrue the message of us trying to get to the next level. We're not going to get there in one night, all right No matter what's been said over the All-Star break or what race we're supposed to be in, it's all meaningless right now.

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.

In 1992, when I was out of the league waiting for a job, my dad passed away and my wife was pregnant. People will tell you, 'Oh, I never doubted for a moment.' Well, I beg to differ. I'm a man of faith, but there's a human side of you that wants to doubt.

It was nice to get the big lead and to spread out the minutes a little bit. But we are a flawed basketball team and we are still working through some things. We have to keep working hard and trying to get better.

It was a gutsy win. We were almost apologizing for being on the court in the first half. Then we got a little more physical. We tried to make some other players score (besides James) instead of letting them get from point A to point B with no resistance.

Guess what I went out on a limb for it. I stand behind it. I've done pretty much all I can do. I need to get a return on my investment. I think Damp will respond. Whatever minutes he plays, I expect him to be a terror out there on the court.

We thought we had a legitimate beef with the way they were playing Dirk. When you don't complain, sometimes it can give the message that you don't care.

I've erred on the side of caution in certain situations, like Jerry, who had an inflated knee. Marquis Daniels' neck situation, we're cautious about that for a reason. This particular ankle injury Keith has is not nearly as bad as some of the others.

He wanted to play a little bit more tonight, but I told him we're looking at the big picture.

He's out for an extended period of time. We've lost an important part of our rotation.

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 needed to jump-start him a little, and I'm open to doing whatever works. Now, we just need to get that on a consistent basis. He was intense and wanted to play well. Now we just have to get that same effort and intensity against Cleveland on both ends of the floor.

Minimum, top five or 10. And it depends on the team. If I'm doing the mock draft, Howard's in there. I say a prayer for whoever is responsible for that one.

If the commissioner changed the schedule and you had to play three or four games in a row, championship teams still find a way to win. So we don't use tired as an excuse. We didn't deserve to win. We weren't very efficient offensively. And give their defense credit. They did a good job of limiting Dirk and Josh's looks late in the game. They have a lot of pride in their locker room.

We're making progress, but it was just a tough loss.

He'd be in the danger area if he played today. It's not that bad, but we don't want it to get worse.

We were climbing uphill all night long. We thought if we could have had a normal quarter offensively and not be in the hole down by 20 points like we were in the first quarter, then we'd be OK.

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.

You have great offensive players in this league who don't let anything bother them. Even when I played, you had supposedly great point guard defenders and they were supposed to get under your skin with their growl or their stare or how they would grab or hold you. There are things you can do on the court to try to take care of that. I've participated in that kind of stuff before. Just be physical.

I just refuse to listen to any more lies. You hear them from FEMA, you hear them from Red Cross and I just didn't want to hear it from him.

The doctor told me he kind of tweaked his knee a little bit. We'll know more tomorrow.

We fought. This was a playoff atmosphere. We wish we'd have been able to match their intensity down the stretch. But we didn't. We just did not execute. We were hesitant. We didn't get to the foul line. We didn't deserve to get there. We didn't make strong enough moves.

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.

He just still doesn't know all the ins and outs of the game. He started playing basketball so late in life that he's still catching up.

You're concerned any time a guy is injured and you have a timetable and are not able to hit those kind of goals.

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.

Jason came out firing, man. That's the Jason Terry that I see. I sleep good at night when he shoots the ball. I know he's not going to make every shot, but when he's aggressive to score that's one of the ways I sleep good. I don't elbow my wife when he shoots like that, so I hope he continues to do that so I can sleep good.

I thought Diop did well with limited minutes ... and I thought Dampier came out and contributed off the bench.

I'm at a loss for words on our defense. We've got to have significant improvement.

This tragedy didn't hit Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. It hit America.

There is going to come a time here - I don't know when - when we're going to start getting some guys back. And it's going to be very important that those guys get back on the practice court and things will get back to normal. But now isn't the time.

We have big goals, but it's no small feat. I don't think anyone before the season thought we were a 60-win team.

He really shut down a lot of their penetration. I thought he was the reason we won the game. Hopefully, I can be saying that tonight, Friday, Saturday. I'd like to mention his name on a more consistent basis.

You always worry about what adjustments they might make. We thought they might change their lineup the last game. You just never know.

You think a streak is never going to come to an end. When it does, it doesn't feel good.

We've been going pretty hard in practice and in the games. It's something we like to do.

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.

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.

always thought of him as a triple-double guy.