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June 18, 2006
MIAMI, FLORIDA: Game Five
Q. If you could just talk about what was happening there at the end as far as that time-out.
AVERY JOHNSON: Well, the signal was for the time-out to come after the second free throw. We've been in this situation a million times, and it was assumed that we wanted it at that time.
Q. Did you miss Jerry Stackhouse's presence on the floor during the course of the game at any time?
AVERY JOHNSON: Yeah, we always miss Stack when he's not there. We miss him when he's not on the floor.
But our players put up a valiant effort tonight.
Q. Are you upset at all that Jason Terry did not drive on the last shot of regulation and maybe try to get a foul there?
AVERY JOHNSON: You know, he was kind of in between right there, pretty much his shot. We've seen it go in quite a bit. Didn't have much time to work with, so when he caught it, he was kind of in between right there.
Q. Do you feel like the free throws cost you the game at the end?
AVERY JOHNSON: The free throws cost us the game?
Q. I'm asking you.
AVERY JOHNSON: You know, obviously they are free and, you know, we normally make them. So we had two or three at that point that didn't go in for us. It's kind of disappointing. But I don't know if that's why we lost the game.
Q. Can you talk about having to win two to win a championship now?
AVERY JOHNSON: Well, we just need to focus on one. That's what we've done a good job of all year. It will be good to get a little home cooking.
Q. What was your impression of Wade's drive to the basket when he got the free throws?
AVERY JOHNSON: You tell me. What was your impression?
Q. Unfortunately nobody cares about my impression.
AVERY JOHNSON: No, you tell everybody here. You tell us. What was your impression?
Q. My impression was he got two free throws out of it.
AVERY JOHNSON: No, that's -- all right. That's a political answer. So let me ask you the question again. What was your impression on that play? We're waiting.
Q. Did he get fouled?
AVERY JOHNSON: I'm asking you the question. What was your impression?
Q. I don't know what to say. What do you want me to say?
AVERY JOHNSON: No, I want you to give everybody an honest answer. We have people from Israel and Minnesota, Chicago, all over, Dallas, Germany.
Q. I'll follow up with another question if that's all right.
AVERY JOHNSON: Yeah, well, go ahead.
Q. The --
AVERY JOHNSON: Don't stutter.
Q. The free throw issue, the time-out at the end, I'm still confused, was it supposed to be called after the first one?
AVERY JOHNSON: Pretty much most people who have ever been involved in the NBA for 20, 30 years, no, we wouldn't want one anyway with only one time-out anyway.
So we were pretty dumbfounded that that couldn't get relayed.
Q. You said it was assumed that you wanted a time-out after the second one, was it assumed by one of your players or by one of the referees?
AVERY JOHNSON: No, we gave the signal, second free throw, time-out, and we'll have to look at the replay. One of our players was saying time-out. I said, yeah, after the second one. So -- but that's not -- that's not, you know, the game. There are a lot of other situations that we're disappointed with.
Q. After everything that's happened in Miami, after the way these three games have gone down, what do you tell your team now to get their confidence back for Game 6?
AVERY JOHNSON: Well, we were pretty confident for this game. We had great focus, we had great energy, we rebounded the ball well, had a chance to win at the end of regulation. And Wade got away from us, then Terry missed a shot, his shot. We had another chance to bottle up Wade. We pretty much sent three people at him, if you can remember that play, and we thought we had him bottled up. But, you know, he went to the free throw line again, pretty much the same amount that our whole team went to the line.
So we thought we played good defense on that play, but just wasn't rewarded for our hustle.
Q. What do you tell them going into Game 6?
AVERY JOHNSON: Well, again, man, we're a team that's tough-minded. I don't know if anybody could respond in this game even the way we responded. There are not many teams -- that's why we're here in The Finals. That's why we're the Western Conference Finals champion and we're here.
We're going home, and I know our fans are going to be really crazy. We play pretty good basketball at home. We've got home-court advantage. So we know we have to play well and win Game 6. There's no tomorrow, and I like that "no tomorrow" feeling for our team.
Q. When you look back on these three games, will you say that Wade hurt you the most or will you also look at your mistakes and perhaps the team's frustration, will that loom larger than Wade's play?
AVERY JOHNSON: Well, Wade is obviously playing great. We tried a lot of different things on him. You know, we've just got to stick with it. We've got to stick with it. We had a stretch there where we denied Wade, and then Gary Payton scores on a flip left-handed layup over one of our centers.
Hopefully we can put together more of a complete game than what we've done here in Miami.
End of FastScripts...
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