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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SPURS v LAKERS

May 29, 2008

Phil Jackson

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Game Five

COACH JACKSON: First of all, let me say a heartfelt congratulations to the Spurs for their run this season. They put a lot of dedication into it. I know how difficult it is when you have gone through the duration of seasons they've had to keep that energy going.
They played a great game tonight. And to put us on our heels early in the ball game, we were able to come back fortunately at the end of the first half and resustain that energy in the second half.
Never a dull moment with these boys, though.

Q. What does it mean to you personally to be going back to the NBA Finals?
COACH JACKSON: Well, I like not to get involved personally in this and think of this as a team effort.
I thought it was a bonus to be able to go in 2004. It was five years with the Lakers in my first contract before I took a Sabbatical. And we went to the finals four times.
But as I told the players tonight, there's nothing like losing the finals for a negative feeling about a year after you've played as well as you've played, not to finish the job up. As much as I appreciate the league trying to emphasize the Western Conference trophy, that doesn't mean, you know, too much when that big prize is still out there.

Q. Can you talk about the comparison of your pregame video which talked about closing the deal and in the fourth quarter your superstar doing just that?
COACH JACKSON: He certainly did.
You know, I felt like I played him too many minutes tonight and had to take a time-out in an inopportune time, or probably an opportune time, after the Spurs had come back at us with a little flurry with 40 on the clock or something. Just wanted to give him a rest so he could come back there, and Pau, too, and give us what we had to have down the stretch: That's some real good play and concerted effort. And they really put it together after that.

Q. How much did the young legs help enable to come back -- coming back from big deficit in Game 1, big deficit tonight. You guys always seem fresher at the end.
COACH JACKSON: We have to give our bench a lot of credit for it. They came in with enthusiasm and picked up the tempo and the energy that they put out there on the floor kind of carried over to the players when they came back out there at the end of the second period.

Q. Pau didn't shoot that well nor did he score that many points. But with the rebounds and shot blocks, did you sense him to do some other things to help the cause for the team?
COACH JACKSON: He runs the plays, the passes. He knows where the ball is supposed to go. That part of his game was very good tonight.
He ended up being a feeder on a lot of stuff that Kobe was beneficiary of, even though he didn't get assists. Still was a sequence that he had to cover.
And he played a lot of minutes and we understand that a lot of times the shots he is going to get are not going to be all the best shots and he is not going to have as good an opportunity sometimes as when he is fresh, but he played well.

Q. Talking about how special this moment is, considering all the off-season uncertainty and then to go through such a season and have the trade, so many things that no one expected to happen to actually be in this stage, how special is this moment right now?
COACH JACKSON: Well, I think it is really a very victorious point in time. I say that with the short faze of this is a fleeting moment, winning a series, and told them to enjoy it for the evening, for Kobe especially.
Coming back after a bewildering two weeks or so in the preseason where things were tenuous at best and, you know, as an organization, I thought we were really a great support of him and understanding. And then to be able to throw his energy wholeheartedly into this team again, that was -- has to be a very special feeling for him to be back here and get to the finals and have exactly what he had hoped to happen happen under all that duress and under that uncertainty.

Q. Just being the finalist and playing now for the championship, it sums up, I would say, a big change in Kobe Bryant's mind-set and Kobe Bryant's career compared to the last finals you were in, how much different players are here right now for the team?
COACH JACKSON: We have a very inexperienced team and obviously the two opponents still sitting in the Eastern Conference, one represents an experienced team in Detroit and the other represents a team with experienced superstars and a lot of inexperienced players that are supporting players behind them.
I am not saying all of them, but for a big part, their starters are young and inexperienced. But we look at both those opponents with a great deal of respect and we know that we have great, great hill to climb to be able to finish in the finals and win.

End of FastScripts

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