Phil Jackson
Phil Jackson
Philip Douglas "Phil" Jacksonis an American professional basketball executive, former coach and former player, currently serving as president of the New York Knicks in the National Basketball Association. Jackson was the head coach of the Chicago Bulls from 1989 until 1998, during which Chicago won six NBA championships. His next team, the Los Angeles Lakers, won five championships from 2000 until 2010. In total, Jackson has won 11 NBA titles as a coach, surpassing the previous record of nine set...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth17 September 1945
CityDeer Lodge, MT
CountryUnited States of America
Kobe fought his way through it tonight. It was one of those games where the numbers of shots he took was too high, but he thought he was going to get fouled and he took the shots because he felt the pressure on him.
They're all big (games) for us. We have 10 home games, three road games and we feel like we have to win really a high majority of those games to finish where we have to finish if we want to go forward to gain momentum for the playoffs.
Obviously the game was determined by Howard leaving so early. That took a lot of energy away from them and we played well as a group.
They have that inner knowledge that (makes them) capable of going in, being tired and making the game come to them, how they want to play the game.
It was a good practice session, but then we started tailing-off, just as most players do during exhibition games and we started shooting more instead of executing.
There's going to be games like that, games that are going to be up there (offensively), especially with the accuracy on three-pointers that they did tonight.
They made that little run and the end, and we had to make some big plays. The biggest plays were defensive -- although Kwame got an offensive rebound that really changed the complexion of the game and forced them to foul.
Our game plan was to exploit the middle and do the things we wanted to, but he (Bryant) was still supposed to be a force over on that side of the offense. I just felt he never really got in rhythm until the end, and we said ?Just go after it.
I've seen some remarkable games but I've never seen anything like that before. It's just a personal challenge for him to attack the whole team. It was not exactly the way you want to win a game, but when you have to win a game, it's great to have that weapon to be able to do it. We rode the hot the hand.
Kareem met these guys at the door and he said, 'That effort wins on Wednesday (in Game 2).' He was very supportive. I think they heard that -- that if they give that kind of effort again, they can win.
He's hired former NBA referees to monitor the game tapes. He sends out a weekly report on the referees. There's some things that Mark has done to turn it a little bit in his favor. That's good.
I've seen some remarkable games, but never anything like that.
The star of the game obviously goes to Tim Thomas.
They knew how intensely they had to play. They knew that there had to be a win. We just said that we're going to win this game regardless. I'm going to play the players that have to play to win the game. They buckled down and did the job they had to do.