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 played a game in which he really controlled the offense from his position. He really doesn't play guard very often. We had people open because he got double-teamed. In the first half, Cook hit his shots.
We couldn't overcome a tough shooting game for Kobe. They threw an extra man at him, and we didn't make good adjustments. Offensively, I don't think we grasped the concepts of what we are trying to do here.
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.
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.
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.
When the game was in hand I tried to take him out. But my assistant Frank Hamblen said, 'I don't think you can do that. He's got 77 points'.
This trip, you've got to do a lot of PR work for the league, pump up that Miami game on Christmas Day because they're asking you to do this all the time. And don't forget, Orlando is just as important in the win-loss column.
We came here with a plan: We're not going to let this game get by us.
When you start out a ball game and the first thing they do is call an offensive foul on him for a nonexistent foul, you know the kid doesn't have a chance out there playing. The referees just give him nothing. It's embarrassing.
Wow, how can you lose a ball game like that. I just don't understand sometimes the capabilities of this team to disappoint.
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.
We've had a couple momentum shifts throughout the course of the year, and this is what we've been talking about as a group - we want to build the momentum, because now is the time to do it. We've shown signs of this - the Houston game at the end of the road trip.
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.
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.