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NBA FINALS: PISTONS v LAKERS

June 13, 2004

Phil Jackson

DETROIT, MICHIGAN: Game Four

COACH PHIL JACKSON: Well, a disappointing night tonight. I thought we played a real good game and got caught offguard in the fourth quarter and were not able to handle the run they made in the fourth quarter sufficiently. And then some foul-shooting put them in a situation where we were playing from behind and not doing a good job of it.
Give credit to the Pistons. They handled the adversity of Shaq's great game and kept their composure and found a way to get to the foul line tonight.
Q. Talk about being in this position and talk about how Karl Malone is.
COACH PHIL JACKSON: Karl couldn't come back the second half and play with any quickness or reactivity, he couldn't run the court very well, in fact. We had to pull the plug on that experiment sometime early.
I thought he helped us out early in the ballgame. Just his presence out there helped us out and obviously Rasheed had a pretty good ballgame behind his absence.
We as a coaching staff have never been in this position obviously in the playoffs, but our message to this team has been we came here to win a game and bring this series back to L.A. and that's all we're here for. The ultimate goal is to win a game and we're going to stay after that.
Q. You talked about changing the lineups and then you went with the same lineup, what changed your mind?
COACH PHIL JACKSON: Well, Karl felt that he could give some minutes out there on the floor. He's been debatable about really trying to say that there was a chance that he might be hurting the team, and we just had a short chat before the ballgame. I said, "Go out and try it and see how you feel before the game." He wanted to give it a try, so we stayed with him and gave him a shot.
Q. Is there a common thread to your defensive problems in the fourth quarter of all of these games? Has there been anything that's been the same problem defensively in the fourth quarter?
COACH PHIL JACKSON: Well, I think the thing that is the most difficult thing to swallow is obviously, our inability to get some loose balls. Billups hitting 3s, second-chance points, free throw opportunities, those things are hurting us. Billups hit a big three. He got a three-point play on a back-handed with Wallace missing the first free throw and getting a second and putting it back. Those are the things that bothered us. Tayshaun Prince got a big rebound at the end of the game when it was a six-point game.
Those things hurt our defensive effort to come back in the game after we got down by ten.
Q. Given the circumstances, what's the mood like in there and do you have a selling job to do the next two days now to convince them this is not over?
COACH PHIL JACKSON: Oh, no. They don't feel it's over. They want to shake. These guys want an even shake out there on the floor, so that's the part that is -- my sales job is convincing them to go out there and play a game that they get an even break on the court, and feel like they are not playing from an uphill standpoint.
I tried to point that out at the beginning of the game, that Kobe is getting fouled, he's getting run into, he's getting knocked around and not getting to the foul line. You know, I got a technical early just to prove a point, to make an effort.
I don't think it worked it. It was in the first quarter. His first free throws I think were at the end of the game.
Q. I understand you just talked about Kobe not getting to the free throw line, but beyond that, what is happening to his game right now?
COACH PHIL JACKSON: I think he rushed his shots a little bit. We asked him to be a playmaker early in the ballgame. He rushed some shots early in the game where he got back in the second period. Prince is doing a good job and they are collapsing well on his penetration. You know, he made some shots a little later in the ballgame, but he's not shooting the ball well right now.
Q. Did it seem like at times your team was a half-step slow with the foul disparity?
COACH PHIL JACKSON: No, I thought our players were reacting pretty well to the ball. You can look at the rebounds. The rebounds tell a big part of the story. We're behind by a few, but it's close, it's not the disparity that was around on Thursday night. So, yeah, we reacted pretty well to the ball. We played a good enough ballgame tonight, and couldn't come away with a win.

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