Avery Johnson Played Quotations

We really liked the way he played defense this summer and the way he was able to get us into some of our offense. I made a special trip to Utah (summer league) just to see him play.

I love coming back here with all the great memories I have here and great friends. And everywhere you go, there's always somebody that talks about some of the teams I played on. And because of the hurricane, I got a lot of family that lives here.

We are fortunate to get out of here with a victory. Both teams played some really awesome defense and we just couldn't get our offense in gear in the second half. This is another game that we proved to ourselves that we can win basketball games with our defense. I don't know if we would have won this game in the past. Now we are a different team.

Jason wasn't 100 percent for us tonight, but he played big and gave us some offensive punch.

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.

That was pretty much a complete game. I'm really proud of the way we battled. We played a tough, hard-nosed game.

We feel fortunate to get out of here with a victory. Both teams played awesome defense. I don't know if we win this game in the past. Now, we're a different team.

We played a very small stretch of decent basketball out of a 48-minute game. We've been defending the 3-pointer pretty well this year, but it didn't happen tonight. We pretty much know where we're going to finish now (the No. 4 seed).

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.

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.

We were fortunate enough get some stops and play some tough, hard-nosed defense. This is the fifth win on a five-game road trip. We have been on the road eleven or twelve days and we played some pretty good defense against a team scoring 150, 120 and 115 points, so I am awfully proud of our guys.

We had to get this game behind us for a lot of reasons. We hadn't played well this year against Lakers, and Kobe's been averaging 50 points on us. We didn't want that to happen again.

We had to get this game behind us for a lot of different reasons. We hadn't played particularly well this year against this team.

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 isn't going to be an easy series for anybody. Memphis isn't going to back down from anybody. They haven't played their best game.

Eight out of the 10 guys in our rotation were in a quote-unquote insurmountable situation last year when we played against Houston. For us, that's something that's sunk in, that we talk a lot about. We've got some guys who know how to respond. Is this game any bigger than Game 3 in Houston last year? ... I don't think so.

These two teams have a lot of pride. Memphis doesn't back down from anybody, and it has not played its best game yet.