It will be interesting to see just how aggressive Josh Howard, Jerry Stackhouse, Jason Kidd and others are in attacking the basket. Avery Johnson wants to see more of it and fast: "We're going to have to do a better job in the halfcourt. We haven't been very good in the halfcourt. We're going to have to do a better job of executing our plays, setting better screens, a better job of running our pick-and-rolls, attacking. So more than anything, overall our fastbreak can be pretty good and we've been pretty decent on the break, it's just in the halfcourt, we've just got to find a way to get the ball to the basket and if not, take our shots and make our shots."
Avery says the team remains confident, upbeat, but he needs to see some desperation: "We're staying together. Nobody's lost any hope, guys are very positive, but at the same time we want them to understand this is a critical time in the season and we've got to play like it's our last game. I haven't seen that as much as I wanted to. This is the last game, we don't have 11 more games, we've got to play it like it's the last game. I think once we do that we'll be in good shape."
-- Jeff Caplan
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