Keep it near the bench

Obviously, Avery Johnson didn’t have a problem with Josh Howard coming to the defense of Devin Harris.

Howard probably could have chosen a better way to deliver his message, but the incident did provide Johnson with another teaching point and the team responded with flying colors.

“You know what I was excited about? That nobody on our team left the bench,” he said today. “That’s what I talked to them about.”

Johnson complimented the job done by assistants Paul Westphal, Joe Prunty and Mario Elie in maintaining order on the bench. Though it’s a major point of emphasis in the NBA, keeping guys glued to the seats when body parts start flying isn’t the easiest thing.

Just ask Amare Stoudemire and the Suns.

“Guys have been doing it their whole lives,” Johnson said. “Ask anybody who played inner-city basketball.”

Johnson also added: “This is not the inner-city. This is a $550 million team and there billions of dollars in this NBA corporation, so it’s a whole different deal. There must be rules and guidelines and disciplines, we all know what they are, and you wish you can coach a guy on what to do in those situations, but sometimes emotions take over.”