The inquisition of Joe Johnson began at about 6:20 p.m., lasted approximately 10 minutes and yielded the following nugget:

If a certain someone, like maybe this certain guy in Cleveland, accepted a max offer from the Knicks and wanted Johnson as a sidekick, Johnson would be willing to sign for less than the maximum.

“I’ll sacrifice,” Johnson said.

Those words will carry some weight as we head toward July 1, 2010, because there aren’t a whole lot of max-level free agents out there who are willing to go on the record saying they’ll sacrifice money if it translates into success on the court.

But Johnson went ahead and said it Monday, and given the fact that he turned down a five-year max contract extension from the Atlanta Hawks last summer, that statement ranks as an eyebrow-raiser.

“If you really want to win, if that’s your main goal, then you’ll sacrifice,” said Johnson, whose Atlanta Hawks lost ground atop the Eastern Conference playoff race by losing 99-98 to the New York Knicks on Monday night after Al Horford’s apparent game-ending and game-winning putback was taken off the scoreboard after a video review showed it came too late.

The only thing Johnson can say with certainty is that he does not want to walk into a rebuilding situation resembling what awaited him in Atlanta upon his arrival in 2005, after he signed his first mega-contract and went from the Suns to the Hawks in a sign-and-trade deal that fractured Atlanta’s ownership group.

“I cannot go back. I can’t backtrack,” Johnson said. “With basketball, I’ve been playing the game pretty much my whole life. I could care less where I was at, I’m going to give you the best I’ve got.”

OK, Joe. Then what would be the best-case scenario?

“My number one choice? I don’t really know,” Johnson said. “I do not know what LeBron’s going to do.”