	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: NUGGETS v LAKERS

May 27, 2009

Phil Jackson

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Game Five

Los Angeles Â– 103
Denver - 94

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. In your pre-game remarks you spoke about the 1975 Warriors. Did you see a glimpse of that tonight?
COACH JACKSON: I thought we played well. They still hurt us on the offensive boards, the first half particularly. I thought we were aggressive tonight and that was the best part of it. More aggressive.

Q. Nobody has an idea how much Lamar Odom has gone through with his back injury. What have you had to do to get him ready and what did you do tonight?
COACH JACKSON: Well, basically he's been limited to activity. So playing the kind of minutes he played tonight, he was pretty exhausted out there. And he gave us a really good effort both ends of the court and did some things that were important for us to win.

Q. What did you guys do tonight in the fourth quarter?
COACH JACKSON: We found a special that worked for us that made them double team. Rotated the ball. Kobe was moving the basketball. Found guys open for easier shots tonight and changed the complexity of the game and gave us a bust out.

Q. In the must-win games, whether it's the Rocket series or tonight, the Lakers have responded. Can you talk about the team, what does that say about them and the way they are mentally.
COACH JACKSON: It's playoff basketball and the energy that's created by the home crowd, by the intensity of the game, all that plays into it. And this Lakers group is really connected. They're a connected group. They're driven and they're motivated to get to where we were at last year to give us a chance to win.
We're learners. We've got some young guys out there that are still making mistakes and we're trying to work through it. That's the best thing tonight, even though we made mistakes defensively and offensively you're going to have that. They continued to work at it. It was no big deal.

Q. We were talking about pregame about creating opportunities through rebounds, blocks, steals, things like that?
COACH JACKSON: He had a terrific game tonight. And probably not a great scoring game as far as the box goes, but he was getting the ball out when he's doubled, moving the ball, blocking shots, rebounding the ball. Good job from him.

Q. Just in general could you talk about that defensive stretch where you had I think 11 straight stops at the end of the quarter?
COACH JACKSON: Some of those stops I was amazed at, because I thought that we left -- we're hustling really hard, we left guys open for shots we were still able to recover to get back to guys who were taking shots.
We had blocks at the baskets. We had rebounds and I thought they were up for grabs and we came down with and that was a period of time where we were able to create some things. The stretch was finally broken by Kleiza hitting a 3, but that was a great stretch for us.

Q. Kobe's done so much for you guys scoring in this series, was it part of the game plan tonight for him to play more of a facilitator role?
COACH JACKSON: That's what we really asked of him. He had eight assists, probably could have had more if we hit some shots. But he was creating the offensive opportunities by generating and double teaming the screen roll with Pau and moving the ball ahead.

Q. Coach, Gasol was talking before, I guess yesterday he was talking about getting more touches and getting the ball more. In the beginning of the game, I didn't even see him touch it maybe the first five minutes. Was that by design? The team seemed to be going to Andrew quite a bit.
COACH JACKSON: Well, we did. Andrew's got that center position. And it's easy for him to get the ball in there, because we were using Pau to create cuts and get opportunities. We didn't go inside to him I don't think once in the third quarter, and I kind of berated the team for that, for the fourth quarter stoppage. And they went back inside at the end of the game, we got some things done.

Q. Clearly got your inside game back today. Do you think you can keep it?
COACH JACKSON: Depends on what they're going to give us, and they've been able to take away some of our inside game by just dropping guys down in and cutting down the angles of the passes, working guys over that were making the passes and really banging us off the block.
So there was more determined effort tonight. I think they responded better in reading the defense in that regard.

Q. How proud of you are of Brown coming in, the aggressive plays going at Birdman who has been there, aggressive in the series?
COACH JACKSON: I put him in the ball game and said, You gotta make things happen for us because we were down 5, 6, whatever it was at that point in the game. And both Fisher and Drew got four fouls and had to come out of the ball game. He sparked our team, gave us a real big lift.

Q. Talked an awful lot about fatigue after Game 4 and yesterday in practice. Tonight Pau and Kobe had their most minutes in the post-season. Was that something that you expected, something they expected going into this contest?
COACH JACKSON: No, not at all. Kobe did not want to come out at the break, quarter break. We got things going at the quarter break, which was a good deal. He wasn't having to expend himself too hard. So that was helpful. Pau was a situation where basically they just kept downgrading small and we never had a chance to get him out of the ball game. But I certainly didn't want him to play those kind of minutes.

Q. About Shannon, what does that say to you about the way he was able to be so ready after not playing in the first half?
COACH JACKSON: He's got a great attitude as a player. He supports his teammates. He looks for his opportunities. Tries to make the best out of them. And with that quarter break, you know, Billups having foul situation, I thought they may substitute Carter in for him. I said, If Carter goes in, Jordan, you're going in; if Billups stays in, Shannon, you've got the lead guard role.
They kind of waited us and kept Billups out on the floor. And we had Shannon out there and they were both connected, both Jordan and Shannon stood in front of me and said go for and it they did.

Q. Last two questions. You played some zone tonight. Why did you do it and how did you think it worked out?
COACH JACKSON: Okay. It was all right. They're still flashing guys into our zone that's creating problems for us. And the biggest problem is the offensive rebounds. But we were able to come out on pretty even keel on the board, so that wasn't a problem.

Q. Why did you go to it?
COACH JACKSON: To support our guys. There's too many foul shots. We thought we could support our players and give them some basic help as far as their individual or isolation situations.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297