291 Quotes by Avery Johnson

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.

Obviously, this is a very disappointing loss. We felt we had a chance to win this game, but they executed better than we did down the stretch. We battled, we fought, this was a playoff atmosphere. We wish we would have been able to match their intensity down the stretch, but we didn't. They were in the bounce-back mode and they bounced back.

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.

They're booing the man out there, and I'm not sure why that's going on. But he wanted to win, and I gave Stack a big hug after the game, because he tried to beat them with his scoring and his assists and his defense.

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.

Points are hard to come by against Memphis, and it's been that way for everybody because of their tempo ... and their defensive scheme. We've got to place a premium on getting good shots.

Nick is so hungry for a championship. I remember when we lost to San Antonio in the Western Conference finals. I had never really seen Nick that emotional. All he had on his mind was trying to get back ... trying to get back. I think that's why when that trade happened he took it so hard.

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

As we move forward, and especially in the playoffs, he's going to get their best defender. It'll be good to see if we've made some progress there.