By William Wilkerson As I sat in the back row of the David Chapel Baptist Church Sunday, the feeling that I had just lost a good friend seeped through my pinstriped suit. I was soon moving my feet from the aisle so Doc Rivers, Bill Walton, Cedric "Cornbread" Maxwell and Robert Reed could find their seats near the front, where they settled to honor the passing of friend and NBA legend Dennis Johnson at his memorial service. Johnson, who was part of three NBA championship teams with Boston and Seattle, died Thursday after collapsing following practice with the Austin Toros, the NBA Development League team he coached. He was 52. I didn't have the unlucky pleasure of drawing D.J. and his junk-yard dog style of defense in my NBA heyday like Reed - Johnson was a nine-time All-NBA defensive performer, six-times a first-team defensive team selection. I didn't get to witness firsthand when Johnson took a pass off a steal from Larry Bird in game five of the 1987 Eastern Conference finals against Detroit and drove in for the winning layup like he did. YouTube that play if you've never seen it before; it's unbelievable. Yet, during the five months I got to know D.J. - from Austin's D-League record 0-12 start to a 32-point win over Fort Worth in the last game he ever coached on Feb. 16 - a small part of me can't help but call Johnson a friend. That's just how capable Johnson was. It didn't matter if you used to rub elbows with him on the hardwood or were a 21-year-old college reporter who best remembers his freckled face by way of ESPN Classic - D.J. was always willing to go out of his way to make your day that much better. Case in point: his last coached game. For nearly 25 minutes, I waited outside the locker room to talk to Toros guard B.J. Elder, who scored 27 of his 29 points in the first half. Around the 10th minute, Johnson came up to me to see if I wanted to talk. Picture that, a coach seeking out a reporter to talk. That was always the case with D.J. If I went to practice to talk with a player, Johnson would always find me to chat. Our interview had ended. Fifteen minutes had passed and Johnson was making his way out of the locker room, heading home, when he stopped to see if I still needed Elder. "Yes sir, but I don't mind wai ...," I said. Johnson had already set his bag down to go back into the locker room to remind Elder that I was outside. I said it then, and I will say it again: Thank you, sir. Every time I talked with a Toros player about what it is like to play for one of the greatest defensive guards in the history of the game, they would shake their head as if to say, "Wow, where do I begin?" They would relay stories about a man who you'd never thought was just the 11th player in NBA history to total 15,000 points and 5,000 assists. Austin center Loren Woods said you'd have to beg Johnson to tell stories about his days in the league. Why? Because D.J. was never about himself. Give him the opponent's top offensive threat, he didn't care. He welcomed and often dominated the challenge. "Coach Johnson is coach Johnson," Austin center Anthony Fuqua said Thursday. "It is hard to explain, but he has given me so many opportunities. Wherever I may be in life is going to be because of him." D.J., your time on this earth was cut too short. Your place in the Basketball Hall of Fame is way overdue. As I look back at myself in the last row of the David Chapel Baptist Church, I realize that my feelings have been confirmed. I did lose a friend.