Postgame quotables, Avery Johnson version

. .. Like I've been saying for a couple of days, we had eight quarters to take a look at what we were doing against this team. We had a chance to take a look at what we did against them post-All Star Break and then the last game of the regular season. We just saw a few things. More than anything, our men hustled tonight and out-rebounded the basketball. We were physical tonight, which this is the first time in the series we've been really physical on both ends of the floor. I think more than the lineup change or someone starting on West or Stojakovic, I just thought our men were very physical tonight.

... We try to put [Dirk] in situations where he was a little bit closer to the basket. Dirk's one of the best rebounders in the league. He was mixing it up in there, he was really making strong contact. We didn't get any dirty rebounds in this series. I'm actually waiting for this series to really get going and really, hopefully, keep improving every game for our guys.

... (When did Jason Terry become a lock-down defender on Paul?) He wasn't a lock-down defender from what I saw tonight, I thought Paul missed a few shots. Terry brought a lot of energy and fortunately, Paul missed some shots. Terry did a good job of communicating. We weren't as much out of kilter as we were in game 2.

... Coming out of the locker room, we weren't going to have any in-between situations. Our first play was to drive to the basket and whatever happened, happened. We weren't going to come out of the locker room today and shoot five jump shots. It just wasn't going to happen. Fortunately, we tried to get the ball to the basket.