	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 FINALS: MAGIC v LAKERS

June 13, 2009

Phil Jackson

ORLANDO, FLORIDA: Practice Day

Q. I just wanted to clarify one thing from the end of the game the other night when you were inbounding the ball at the end of regulation. It seemed in your comments yesterday that you thought Orlando still had a foul to give.
PHIL JACKSON: Well, they could give a foul for a two-point shot.

Q. Long winding road from the start in Chicago. Interested in your thoughts about being on the threshold of going where no other coach has gone.
PHIL JACKSON: They say it takes four games to win, and I just don't want to even talk about anything like that until that's a done deed, because that's such a difficult thing to do. We've had to win some games in a very impossible fashion against this team and found a way to do it in a couple of games. But we know there's just a trifle of changes between winning and losing in these series games. With that kind of effort in mind, it's hard for me to think past the game.

Q. But I'm talking about the journey, the Zen, the journey from 1991 until now.
PHIL JACKSON: Well, I've written a couple books in between those two times and said a lot about it in those books. But I think most of all it's about players and understanding the level of play in this league, what it takes individually and then collectively as a player.
I think my experience as a player helped me in this regard, this profession. Not everybody has that chance. Until you know the grill, the grind, the sweat, the tears, the pain that goes into this and the number of surgeries that you have because of it, you kind of get the mindset of the players, I think that kind of set it up. The aspect of taking over a basketball team in 1991 that was on the verge of being a very good team was a real gift for me, enhanced by the fact that they'd been to The Finals in the Eastern Conference a couple times and they were really a young team ready to play and very readily coached. So I got off to a really good start.
But that team changed hands in three years and we came back with the Pippen-Jordan crew in the late '90s that was even probably better in regards to knowing their roles. Maybe not as talented, but a very good role team.
This change has been, this venue has been kind of like a second career for me in LA. Obviously the Buss family is a very engaging family, very interesting family, and they've given me an opportunity to coach this team, which is one of the storied franchises in the NBA.

Q. Can you talk about Auerbach's legacy. And also, is it fair to compare you two?
PHIL JACKSON: No, it's not. You know, Red was a D.C. guy, as you guys probably know, some of you know. He started out in the NBA and coached those first few years with the Washington team down in D.C., came up with the Brown family up in Boston and took that team over, had the opportunity to get Heinsohn and Cousy early on and start having championship-caliber clubs. Then made the trade of "Easy Ed" (Macauley) for Bill Russell, which was a landmark situation. He took a great risk on trading an All-Star center for a kid coming out of college, which turned out to be the most winningest ballplayer ever in the NBA. That's really important.
I think Red probably could have won two or three more championships, but I think he saw Bill, to kind of keep him involved, but he turned the team over to Bill in that general manager role, and Bill went on to win a couple more championships, playing and coaching at that time. So it's completely different.
Of course free agency wasn't part of the game. It was eight and then expanded to ten teams at that time. Maybe it was nine there and then went to ten. So it was a different league entirely. You played teams eight times, ten times, so going to the playoffs was like meeting your family or your best rival, classic match-ups between the Royals and the Celtics at times, Celtics and the Lakers in the '60s. So there was some real classic match-ups in that era.
But he retired and went into the role of player personnel and general manager role and directed championship teams, saw the talent and nursed the talent that came to the Celtics. You can talk about all the trades he made, Charlie Scott, getting him there at the Celtics, many of the trades that made a big difference, Johnson, getting him from Phoenix to the Celtics made a big difference in a couple of the Celtic teams that were changing directions they were going. And even being able to sit on Bird for a year and waiting for him to finish college, knowing he was the kind of player that would fit into Boston the right way all spoke to his knowledge about the game and what he saw in talent and character.

Q. Can you talk about Mitch's basketball sense and how you guys worked together to build this team?
PHIL JACKSON: Well, when I came back to the organization in '95, '96, I came back with the understanding that this was going to be a parallel cooperative job, that we would match wits as far as what we were going to do. It was Jimmy Buss' idea that we should draft Andrew Bynum, and he was decidedly for that.
He spent a good amount of time convincing me that this was the right move for our franchise, Andrew being 17 years of age, having played 26 games in high school, limited experience as far as organized ball. It made me understand that we were not going to overnight change this ballclub, that it was going to take some time. But I said I was willing to do that even though we started out with a three-year contract.
We made the trade, made some trades to shore up the inside while Andrew was a learner, getting Kwame Brown, which is giving up a lot of talent, but I thought we were pretty deep at that position with Luke and Lamar, et cetera. But all those things were done with the complete knowledge of Mitch and I trying to work together.
We talked about the Pau Gasol trade a year before it happened in that regard, and I was dubious, although I really admired Pau's capabilities and ability, I thought maybe he didn't have the physical strength and stamina to play against the kind of players that here he is playing against, the Garnetts, obviously Howards, and he's shown me to be wrong. So that deal was done in secret but with my approval as far as changing what we had to get changed.
But Mitch has gone ahead and really mined what level of talent we have. He's very much a Trevor Ariza fan, believed in him, encouraged me to continue looking at him as a ballplayer when he was still with other teams and still coming along as a young player. He's been very cooperative in working together as far as a collusion of ideas in this system that I run. So it's been a real easy relationship to maintain.

Q. Just following up on a question earlier about your decision to inbound from the backcourt rather than the front court, how common or uncommon is that for you in those kinds of situations, and I wonder if you can speak to if you thought that maybe caught them off guard.
PHIL JACKSON: Well, we did it at the nine-second mark in Game 2, the overtime game where we had the ball, and they were able to block Kobe's attempt at that time and force the game into overtime in Game 2. But that goes back to the first championship run when we had an overtime game with the Lakers in game No. 3 in the Forum, and Michael took the ball full court and hit a shot over Scott, because I felt that so many teams take the ball at half court and then we're static, stagnant, and sometimes it's better to move the ball out.
I thought if we had the ball in front of their bench and we were running something from the side at that time that perhaps it would be easier to foul and then collectively they could even double-team or foul and get the ball out of Kobe's hands, and then we'd be sitting in a situation where their defense would have more of an opportunity to hold us in, so I just wanted the court open in that situation. It's not that usual in this game, though.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297