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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: NUGGETS v LAKERS

May 26, 2009

Phil Jackson

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day

Q. Are you still as frustrated today as you were last night at the officiating or lack thereof?
COACH JACKSON: I don't think I got into that last night. I think that was a topic that was brought up and I answered the question about it. But I didn't bring that topic up yesterday. And that's not something I focused on.

Q. Has it gone from physical to dirty at this point?
COACH JACKSON: You know, there's a sense of how much people want it and what the level is how you play when you have to play hard. And how aggressive you become. I think that's a fine line. And I want to keep the topic on a positive note today. I don't want to talk about that aspect of it. I want to talk about basketball.

Q. Have you guys learned anything positive about your team during this run? Have you been tested in the first three rounds? Anything positive you take from that?
COACH JACKSON: Well, you know, it's a reactive series. I think we talked about that after Game No. 3 in Denver, the reaction and the desperation goes to the loser, and we've been able to respond to that up to this point. And that's the one thing I've learned is that our team's responded well to situations where they've had to.

Q. I'd like to get your reaction to something I just read in the national newspaper that last night?
COACH JACKSON: Which newspaper?

Q. That would be the U.S.A. Today. According to their crack research, last night was your 11th game in 22 days. Is that maybe cause for the fatigue we might have seen?
COACH JACKSON: It's possible. But you know we're really trying to take care of our players in the process between. Guys are doing anything from ice baths to massage, to we're not asking players to play over 35 minutes, 30 minutes, really, to do anything physical.
So there's a recovery period, and they have to take care of themselves in that period and we hope they're doing that off site here.
But we think that they can respond to this. We're not going to use it as an excuse.

Q. Lamar says he wants to be out there playing giving 100 percent. Doesn't seem like he can give 100 percent right now. Seems like his back is really hurting. How do you gauge that from where you're sitting? Do you have to talk to him and have him be honest with you about how he's feeling? Seems limited out there.
COACH JACKSON: I'm watching his reaction to the ball most of the time, see what he can do and can't do. There were a couple times last night I saw his return to reacting to balls that were coming off the rim and some defensive things.
But as a coach, you don't want to see a player shy away from contact, for example. And this is a contact series. And so I've been trying to get Drew to step up and play to some minutes to relieve that, some minutes that Lamar normally plays.
And I thought he responded well in the fourth quarter, Drew did, yesterday. And helped get the game back under double digit points. We lost it, but he stepped in there, tried to fulfill his job and do his job.

Q. Do you feel there's a sense why, why did it spark for Drew at that point?
COACH JACKSON: Well, I think he was upset about coming out of the game in the third quarter. There's a couple of actions there that I didn't see him go to the ball defensively and I thought, well, we can't wait around in this quarter after we got the lead down to 3.
And so when he went back in, I liked his response. That's the way he has to play.

Q. Does the Dahntay Jones flagrant foul sound about right to you, the upgrade?
COACH JACKSON: I'm not privy to that information. What information is that?

Q. Flagrant foul one.
COACH JACKSON: On the push?

Q. On the trip.
COACH JACKSON: On the trip. Yeah, I'm not a person that's a judge in that situation. I think that person either has to be nominated by our new president and that's such a difficult thing to judge all the time, I don't even want to weigh in on that stuff.

Q. J.R. Smith, you talked about the fouls last night, and he's more engaged in the series?
COACH JACKSON: Yes, he played well. They just attacked us off the dribble last night with both Billups and Smith. And both of them did a fine job.
J.R. found his 3-point shot, too, in the process as well. But those things come and go. What he did well was penetrate the pass.

Q. Make the close shots?
COACH JACKSON: Well, that's just part of the game, the new game that these kids have.

Q. What can you do differently against the dribble penetration and the offensive board opportunities? Does that cause --
COACH JACKSON: The combination of the two are really creating havoc for us. And we had this in all the series. Utah, Houston, and now we just have to mount the response to it. And we play pretty good for 20 seconds and then give up an offensive rebound or something. So we're close. We just have to continue the pursuit.

Q. Was that an emphasis in practice and in the film room today?
COACH JACKSON: Well, the emphasis has been there. We misplayed -- there was probably half a dozen we misplayed. But there were some that we played right and they beat us to what we tried to do. So you've got to give them hats off on that. There's going to be some things that happen like that. You give up something in this game.
So we just want to do the best we can in those situations where we're doing it team-wise so everybody's on the same page.

Q. Derek and Sasha were out there shooting for quite a while after practice. Do you think it's not a good thing that Sasha keeps shooting and shooting and shooting; should he get away from the game or should he keep working through it?
COACH JACKSON: For a year or two we thought Sasha was an 11:00 player, played in practices, but he couldn't fulfill it in games. And that's because he's a very high energy guy and he gets animated or he has nervous energy when he's in a game and sometimes he's too quick, almost, shooting the ball.
So we tried to slow him down a little bit. And in the process I think he's at a point now where he's starting to think about it. And that's what you don't want a shooter to do. He's gotta do it instinctively because he believes in himself and he's going to make the right play.
There's a combination, yes, get the shot back; but you also start believing in what he can do and have confidence that he will.

End of FastScripts

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