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NBA FINALS: LAKERS v CELTICSJune 15, 2008Phil JacksonLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Game Five Q. I thought you guys were really, really physical tonight. PHIL JACKSON: We were aggressive. We played hard. Not smart all the time, but we played hard. Q. Now that you, as you said earlier, this series isn't over, and we know it's not over now. What did you tell the guys in the locker room as you prepare to go to Boston? PHIL JACKSON: The same thing I said after Game No. 4, and that's just keep forcing the games and making plays, keep making one play at a time, one quarter at a time. Don't think anything past this next opportunity on Tuesday to play this team again. Q. Can you talk about the Kobe steal and just what it gave you, what it did for you guys at that point? PHIL JACKSON: Well, it was a breakout basket that he made. We were getting beat on a Pierce-Garnett screen roll that got higher and higher as they got up towards half court. They extended our defense and Pierce was able to break us down, we tried to do something different and this time Kobe was available and capable of getting that steal. Q. He's always been described as the closer on offense and tonight he was the closer on defense? PHIL JACKSON: Yeah, he did make the plays. Q. Can you talk about the impact of Jordan Farmar tonight and using him in the two-guard lineup with Fisher? PHIL JACKSON: We thought Jordan could attack. His speed and quickness got him to the basket, and he was able to break their defense down a little bit. That was important to us. His activity on the defensive end was important. You know, Sasha didn't have a really good game going, and so I put Fish as a balanced partner back there in the backcourt with him. Q. Can you talk about Pau and Lamar coming back off last game? PHIL JACKSON: You know, they both did a good job on the boards, and I thought Pau was aggressive, made some real good plays out there. Lamar had one of those games in which one of our writers here was questioning his ability to rebound and come back after that kind of a -- what kind of game would we have out of Lamar, but Lamar is very resilient and showed that tonight. Q. Can you talk a little bit about the rotation you used at the top of the second quarter and then just the bench generally, if you're comfortable with finding the match-ups that you're looking for? PHIL JACKSON: Well, you know, we knew that we had laid another first quarter on the Celtics, and it was a great opportunity to get some rest for the players, and we know that we have a travel day tomorrow and another game on Tuesday, and obviously you really don't want to play -- if you can manage minutes well in a situation like this and manage the score, but we just didn't manage the score well. We went out there, they had five possessions, scored five times, got us in a penalty situation. We got a couple baskets out of that group, but we really couldn't stop Pierce. He got off, started running, got hot and kept going the rest of the game, and that was really putting us in jeopardy and giving them the edge up, and they basically made up all those points in a matter of a quarter again. Q. Are you comfortable with where the bench is at this point? PHIL JACKSON: You know, I tried some different players off the bench, Chris Mihm tonight, gave him an opportunity to play a little bit. It wasn't his fault at all. Pierce went right by our defenders and put him in jeopardy. But we tried some different faces out there to see what we could do, but we're not going to stay with that. We won't be comfortable with that on Tuesday. Q. Can you talk about your offensive execution in the fourth period tonight as opposed to Game 4? PHIL JACKSON: We just went to -- we went to some screen rolls. They were capable of smothering that, taking away middle penetration by Kobe. We went to some open ideas then to try and give Kobe the middle of the floor, and he's capable of breaking people down, and he got some things happening, got some shots from people, not particularly for himself, but he did make plays. Q. You guys surrendered a 19-point lead, were able to build it back up into double figures, and also won the third- quarter margin for the first time all series. Talk about being able to be resilient like that. PHIL JACKSON: Well, I went in at halftime and said, "thank God we don't have a lead." It's important we don't have something like that because we just don't know what to do with it anyway, and they were able to come out and give it up right off the bat, but scrap back. A big key, Radmanovic hits a three, we get a couple plays that helped us out and got that lead established again and were able to play a little bit more comfortable basketball. Q. Are you comfortable with the 86 points that you got from the starters, or would you be more comfortable with more than that? PHIL JACKSON: Yes, you know, I think that obviously we'd like to have our bench give us a better bump than that, but right now their bench is playing a little bit better than ours is, and we've got some guys performing off the bench but not the unit. We're going to have to find a better way to do at that in Game 6 if we're going to survive. Q. You talked about your team being resilient. What did you learn about them tonight? Anything more? PHIL JACKSON: Well, they just played harder. They played harder than the Celtics consistently for the game, and I think that was a big key in the ballgame. They scrapped out rebounds, we won the rebound situation. It was a very close game statistically, though, but possessions were important. I think we had more shots than they did. Those are the type of things that win games that are this close. Q. Why do you think the team was having problems defending Pierce that you described? PHIL JACKSON: You know, his match-up is difficult. He's strong. He's able to make some step-throughs or some pivots that get him by our defenders. He got eight assists on top of us trying to rotate and go to him and help out against him, so he's even making plays and becoming a play-maker. This is something we're going to have to figure out and do a better job of that. Q. Could you talk a little bit more about Kobe's performance? He scored 15 in the first quarter and didn't hit too much in the second and third. PHIL JACKSON: Yeah, he came out and got 15 points in the first quarter, set the tone of the game, had a lot of energy out there, got a rhythm going, got confidence built for the team. Just played an overall stellar game. I thought defensively he came out in the fourth quarter and just said, well, let me take Pierce. It seems like we're going to have problems with him. He had gotten a couple offensive fouls in the third period and put himself in jeopardy, and I was a little bit concerned about him taking Pierce with four fouls, but he was able to survive it. End of FastScripts |
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