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
He is still a long ways from being smooth in what we anticipate will be a system that he'll take to and enjoy, ... It's going to take him a while, as it will everybody, especially a guy who's a lead guard in a situation like that. It takes some time.
I wonder if they ever are. I thought they might let that go this year, but it didn't seem apparent at all. Right away, he got booed. He just may be one of those guys that has to carry that for a year or two until another group comes along that gives him a break.
Obviously I think Chauncey Billups is really the guy that controls the throttle over there. He is an important part of their success.
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.
I think he gave the ball up in various points of the year, and I think there's been a fine balance between guys stepping up and making shots and Kobe trusting his teammates. It hasn't got to the point where it's not happening, where I'm disappointed, but there's opportunities that still could be there that have to be exploited even more and we have to recognize that as a team.
I've seen quite a few guys do that in his situation, focused. He wanted to stay in, in the second quarter. He asked to stay in so he could get loose, get a second wind.
I think some of our guys hit a little bit of a wall here. We talked a lot about that ... This is a heavy time to play basketball. You've really got to take care of yourself. I had a couple of guys fighting through things out there, under-the-weather type of things. They just couldn't get themselves going.
I told the guys at halftime, they had their nap in the first half, now it's time to play. And you saw what happened. We slept almost all the way through the third quarter.
I thought it was vindictive. I don't like to see it because he's one of the guys that we nurtured here. He was contributing to us a lot in the championship (run) two years ago.
I told the guys that the team is going to double- and triple-team Kobe at the end. So he's not going to get the ball. Somebody else is going to have to step and make shots.
It's a tall order, without a doubt. But that's the key to this series is how you're going to slow down the guy that makes this offense generate points and close out on the guys that are getting wide-open shots.
I think they felt intimidated at some point in this playoff. ...Our big guys have been effective. ... They just wanted to make a stand and make a statement.
This is a team we told our guys not to foul, and we end up sending them to the line 35 times. That was one of the things we didn't expect.
It was the way the game played out. We had guys open, there were situations that were going right.