Johnson: “Aggression is always rewarded”

The Mavs haven’t fared too well in noon starts the last few years. But as Jerry Stackhouse pointed out, most of those games have been on the East Coast.

“Noon there is 11 for us,” he cracked in the locker room. “Noon is noon here.”

We’ll see if that one hour makes a difference today against Atlanta, which is looking for a season sweep. The streaking Hawks run out an impressive group of athletes led by Joe Johnson, Marvin Williams and Josh Smith.

“It’s an athletic team we’re playing so it’s important for us to maintain that energy,” Stackhouse continued. “But more than energy, the word for us is ‘aggressive.’”

Avery Johnson repeated as much during his pregame media session and it was also the theme of yesterday’s spirited film session. Whether it’s on the offensive or defensive end, Johnson wanted to stress one thing.

“Aggression is always rewarded,” Johnson said. “The teams that are aggressive, that foul hard, drive hard, rebound hard, play hard, teams that complain the least, to me, historically, I think they get rewarded.”