I love this picture of Dennis Johnson, who died suddenly yesterday of a heart attack at age 52…Johnson, who many believe to be a hall of famer is widely regarded as one of the great clutch players in NBA history…this is supported by the fact that he averaged 14.1 points per game in the regular season during his 14-year NBA career but in 37 games in the NBA Finals he averaged 18.3 points per game….in fact among the 65 players in NBA history who played at least 800 games in the regular season and 15 games in the Finals, only two had a larger increase in their Finals ppg average over their regular-season mark than Johnson's 4.2: Hakeem Olajuwon, who was plus 5.7 (21.8 to 27.5), and James Worthy, who was plus 4.6 (17.6 to 22.2)…he’s also one of the most adaptable players I’ve ever seen, starting off as a long armed, super quick, high jumping scorer for the Sonics (1979 MVP of the Finals) and ending up as a defensive stopper (11 times 1st or 2nd team All-defence) and clutch shooter (Bird stole the ball from Isaih, but DJ Made the cut to the basket and witched hands on the layup to get by Dumars) for the Celtics…

Anyways, here are some terrific writer’s who remember him fondly:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070222

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/jack_mccallum/02/22/dennis.johnson.remembered/index.html

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/6496228

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2003585164_a1kelley23.html

http://www.courant.com/sports/hc-dj0223.artfeb23,0,7610078.story?coll=hc-headlines-sports

http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2007/02/23/he_always_rose_to_the_occasion/