Avery Johnson Work Quotations

We put together a pretty decent game from start to finish. We had a few key contributors from Dirk and Devin finding Terry for those big shots to start the third. But again, we have a few things to work on.

We thought our first-quarter defense really set the tone. We worked on a lot of stuff this morning and we were fortunate to have some carry over.

Teams are coming in here dropping 30-some points on us in the first quarter. We've been digging ourselves in a hole, so I'll continue to work on finding the right formula to help get us off to better starts. Maybe I won't call timeouts as quick as I used to. We'll have to do something.

Everybody's not going to play in the exhibition games, so we needed to get some work in. I don't look at training camp being the first week of October. It's the whole month of October.

We hope we're back, as like any Western Conference team that's going to playoffs. But we've got too much work to do.

Our first quarter defensively really set the tone. We worked on a lot of stuff this morning. They (Atlanta) missed a lot of shots but the defense was better than it was in that last game (against Golden State). We just threw out that last game.