Avery Johnson knows what it’s like to be in the pressure cooker of an NBA head coaching job. And Johnson said he felt that fired Lakers coach Mike Brown didn’t get a fair shake in Los Angeles this season before the Lakers chose to let him go Friday afternoon after a 1-4 start.
“A little premature,” Johnson said before Friday night’s 107-68 win over the Magic in Orlando. “But, again, every situation is different. You don’t know what goes on behind the scenes, but it was a pretty quick trigger on a good basketball coach.”
Johnson and Brown are members of the same San Antonio coaching tree. Johnson spent several years, and won a title, with the Spurs, and Brown was an assistant coach there for three seasons, including coaching Johnson during the 2000-01 season.
* Maybe it’s the shoes. Jerry Stackhouse came off the bench and scored 11 second-quarter points in his Nets debut, turning back the clock to his high-scoring prime in Friday’s win.
Stackhouse also was turning back the clock to those days with his shoewear, as he wore a pair of his original FILA shoes. Stackhouse has said there will be other appearances of his old FILAs throughout the season.
For his part, Deron Williams joked after the game that Stackhouse wasn’t aided by his shoes, but by a pair of socks Williams loaned him before the game.
* The Nets broke several statistical droughts with their victory over the Magic on Friday night. The win snapped a 15-game losing streak in the state of Florida — they had lost seven straight in Miami, including Wednesday’s blowout loss, and eight in Orlando.
Also broken was a 10-game losing streak to the Magic, who the Nets hadn’t beaten since April 11, 2009, and who had beaten the Nets 15 of the previous 16 times they had played.