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NBA ALL-STAR WEEKEND

February 19, 2006

Avery Johnson

HOUSTON, TEXAS

COACH AVERY JOHNSON: This was a great night, just a phenomenal opportunity. Got a chance to work with some really awesome All-Stars. My first time to have this experience, it was wonderful. Obviously we wanted to win this game, but you can only have one winner.
LeBron and the rest of the East put on a great show. Flip had a stretch in there where he had his team in there running some of their stuff against us, and I thought that was pretty.
We wanted to have an opportunity where we could actually play a seven-foot lineup but we couldn't get there, with KG, good at the point guard.
But, hey, the guys really tried to get T Mac the ball. We got him the ball in his hands at the end of the game and had the whole side cleared for him. But just, the ball just didn't go in. We had a good run there, we rebounded the basketball, we had a stretch there where we turned it over quite a bit and that's what enabled them to get back in the game after we had that 20-point lead.
Overall I thought this was a great weekend, my kids had fun, my wife had fun, which is good, keep your wife happy -- (laughter). And in about I guess an hour, the slipper comes off and I'll be getting ready to get my mind ready on what's coming up.
So just a great weekend, just glad to be a part of it here in Houston and in Texas, a lot of familiar faces, and just hopefully we'll have this opportunity again.
Q. Talk about halftime, you guys had a huge lead, I know Shaquille on the other side, he was upset, he thought the East played a little lackadaisical and having too much fun, what did you say about keeping the lead and having the lead?
COACH AVERY JOHNSON: Again, we built it up to 20 points, but they kind of outscored us during that one stretch there, and we had five turnovers, which led to about 12 of their points in there and they were making threes. We were 4 for 26 from three and they had a stretch in there where they made two or three threes in a row, and they had 25 points in a small stretch there, just like a blink.
Again, man, there are a lot of different things, we try to have a couple of different combinations, but more than anything, everybody here for our team got a minimum of 14 or 15 minutes. Everybody is going back to their teams healthy. I felt a sense of responsibility to their coaches, whether I know their coaches personally or not, to get them back and not overuse anybody.
Obviously, you know, T Mac played 26 minutes, but that was the limit that I had on him because he was playing really, really well, and boy, we thought he was going to be able to get the MVP of this game. What a great deal for Kobe and Nash and those guys to try to get him the ball.
Q. Could you please comment on the effect the Detroit Pistons All-Stars had on the game and the early part of the fourth quarter.
COACH AVERY JOHNSON: Yeah, it was pretty big. We had a stretch in there where they were getting stops, they were running some of their stuff. Again, we didn't really have time to plan for anything that they were doing in the sense, even though these guys have played against them.
But they were in sync and that really shows how great of a team sport basketball can be when you have everybody on the same page.
Q. Were you worried about going to T Mac too much instead of spreading it around?
COACH AVERY JOHNSON: Well, it wasn't necessarily me, now I ran some plays for him and I told him the ones that worked, just forget about them, because I don't want to see those when he gets in a Rocket uniform. But they don't need my plays.
I think more than me trying to run plays for him, you can tell what's going on. The guys were consciously trying to get him the ball, and he was hot. All four of our threes, he was the one that made them, and Dirk won the Three Point Shootout, but he couldn't get one going.
Again, everybody, the minutes were spread out. Everybody had a positive attitude after the game. We made a good run at it in the fourth quarter. You know, T Mac had a point-blank shot there on a little 16-footer that just came up short.
Q. Could you talk real quickly about Gasol and if the illness affected him, and he did have a game-high in rebounds as well.
COACH AVERY JOHNSON: Pau couldn't practice with us today but he was valiant on the boards. He had two or three shots where he could not get them to go.
We ran two plays for him, trying to get him posted up, and he had a couple of stretches there where he was matched up with Ben, and Ben made a good play on him one time, and that happens.
I thought everybody gave a tremendous effort. I don't think anybody was out there coasting, and Pau definitely rebounded the ball really well for us.

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