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NBA FINALS: MAGIC v LAKERSJune 12, 2009Phil JacksonORLANDO, FLORIDA: Practice Day THE MODERATOR: Welcome, everyone, to today's conference call featuring coaches from both teams, the Los Angeles Lakers and Orlando Magic. We'll begin now with Coach Phil Jackson of the Lakers. Would you like to just make an opening remark? PHIL JACKSON: Yeah, I just wanted to inform our listeners and participants that having won that game, which was obviously a big push for us and a great advance towards winning a championship, we recognize the fact that we still have a big battle, big game to win before we can do anything more or claim anything. I have not watched the full tape. I have seen up to the third quarter, but I will respond to any questions about the game and the future games. Q. I've been assigned to place you in context, in your place in history. I know you're just stuck at nine titles so you're tied with Red right now, but just on a general notion, how do you feel when you hear yourself asked about a, quote, place in history? PHIL JACKSON: Well, you know, we try to work under the assumption that you're only successful the moment you perform a successful act, and in that regard, this has not been accomplished yet. So talking about futuristic things kind of throws me for a loop. Talking about Red Auerbach's record and what he accomplished as an NBA coach, I can -- again as a young player in the NBA looking at those records of the Celtics and realizing and thinking about how unattainable they are, how remarkable 11 championships at that time were, and the fact that Red coached nine championships, world championships. So I do know that it's a momentous thing. Q. Do you have a theory on whether you should foul or shouldn't foul based on how much time is left in the game? PHIL JACKSON: Yeah, I do. I usually go with anything under five seconds and if the ball is taken out in the half-court area, guys coming away from the basket, you want to foul them and make them restart again. You know, usually if there's somewhere over eight, nine, ten seconds, you want to make them put the ball on the floor, use some time maybe before you give a foul. But that's not a hard, fast rule. There are times when we have fouled just to say, look, let's make them start over again, let's have them reset, have to get the ball back in again and then we'll go from there. We want to see what they're going to do. That's been an option, too. But for the most part it's usually five seconds. Q. Your team made a couple of passes and Fish put the ball on the floor two or three times. Were you surprised that no foul ever came? PHIL JACKSON: Well, once he put the ball on the floor and he was driving the ball up the court, it became difficult for the defender to know whether to foul or not because then he can go into his shooting motion, and any time a guy comes to foul at that point when no one was there with him, and obviously they had thrown two guys at Kobe to double-team him and get him off the ball in that situation, that put Derek in the driver's seat. Q. How do you keep the emotions in check, even the excitement in check, that the players are feeling the next 48 hours with the knowledge they're one win away from a championship? PHIL JACKSON: You know, I don't know if I have the expertise in that department. This is something that really has got a lot to do with how Orlando plays. We just have to go out there and assume the fact that we're going to have to play at a very elevated level to win this game. The big key is that if we can match that play and the energy that they throw out there on the floor, then we give ourselves a chance. To do that we have to be focused, which is always a coach's cry, get focused. We have to reach the energy level or the emotional level of the game in a way that matches what the crowd and the Orlando team put out there on the floor. Q. Did you sense any over-excitement on the players' behalf after the game last night? PHIL JACKSON: Oh, without a doubt. They're excited about the possibility of winning, and they're thrilled to have won that game. Yeah, there's no doubt that they're excited about it. This morning we had a short team meeting just to kind of clarify what we're going to get accomplished in the next day and a half here sitting around waiting, getting plans made for tomorrow, et cetera. And you can sense the mood of the team is -- they're really excited about it. But what I told them is there's a chance tomorrow's practice may be the last practice of the season. That's also something that gets them pretty excited because practice for players is something that is -- at this level of the game, having gone through hundreds or probably more than a hundred-some practices, they're excited about not having to come to practice again. Q. Considering how important Trevor and Lamar have both been to your postseason run, what do you think about what lies ahead for you guys in the offseason, potentially having to make a decision between those two players? PHIL JACKSON: You know, I don't know if that's actually what's going to happen. I mean, that's not written in stone, that we have to make a decision between those two players. I don't think that's a case at all. This is just part of the NBA, what level the NBA has brought to the game at this point, is you have players that -- you have decisions to make in the free agent life, and last year Boston lost one of its key players in James Posey and they had to go on and let him go to free agency. I think that didn't bother him. I think it hurt him in the course of the season, but that's what you have to do is you have to maintain discipline and whatnot. So we'll discuss that and a number of other things with personnel in a couple of weeks. Q. I know you've talked about Trevor's development over the last year several times, but especially after his third quarter last night, can you just talk about the player he's become in the short time that you've had him? PHIL JACKSON: Well, Trevor is a player that we thought was a developing player as we got him. I mean, this is a young guy that obviously we felt came out of college early in hopes of getting drafted and ended up in New York and never got fully developed as a player in college or in the pros because he didn't stay in one organization long enough to do that. We thought that his ability to develop as a player was going to be key. This is the year that he's really shown that development as a player. The big key with Trevor is you have to learn how to shoot the shot, and this year he's learned how to shoot the shot to go along with his drive, his slash game. And here he is in a position that every player envies, having an opportunity to perform on a championship team and be in a free agency situation behind it. Q. You kind of joked yesterday when somebody asked you a question, you said, "I don't really do anything, I just sit on the bench." But do you think that you're a better coach now in all seriousness in this Finals than maybe you were in your first Finals years ago? And if so, how? PHIL JACKSON: Well, that's a hard thing to measure, I guess, first of all. A lot of things, what you are as a coach, end up being that way because of the players you have and the talent that you have on a team, and obviously that team that was in Chicago was a very talented team. I think temperament-wise, yeah, I'm probably a better coach in that degree, probably not as excitable, probably not as intense, much more patient. So those things are I think obvious things that have happened to me as I've coached. I don't know if that makes me better or not. Q. Any comment on the report that the league did not suspend Pietrus for his actions on Gasol? PHIL JACKSON: No. I won't weigh in on that. I don't think that it's necessary. We know that these things are -- a lot of it is arbitrary. It looked like a serious intention to come at him, and there was a Flagrant 1 that was called on him. But that's just the way the game is now. You just don't know what's going to be judged as a flagrant foul and what isn't. Usually it's a blow above the shoulders is what's the major differential between, okay, this is going to be a Flagrant 1 or 2, and then we go from there. But I'm really not a good enough judge of that yet. I haven't got a good enough idea of what the league is doing to understand that in totality. Q. I'm curious, you mentioned, and you said that Fish mentioned, 2000 Indiana Finals last night. What do you recall about that game where you guys ended up getting blown out, and was that an indication of that team's kind of callowness, not understanding how to deal with the moment, and do you have any concerns about the guys on this team, Kobe and Fish, in that regard? PHIL JACKSON: You know, I do. We recognize that the teams that get to The Finals are teams that have overcome obstacles in the course of a year. They've overcome playoff difficulties, they've fought for a sense of unity together. I think that's the point Fish was making. It wasn't so much about the fact that the team went out and goofed off and messed around and whatnot. But it was the mental attitude that, oh, we've-got-them-now type of thing. They don't want to go back to LA. That happened to us last year versus Boston. We had a game which we lost that was a heart-breaking game, game No. 5 in LA, a comeback by Boston, 20 points down, come back and take that game. We came back and won that game simply for the fact of winning at home, winning it because, a let's-not-lose-in-front-of-our-home-fans type of thing. I think that's the attitude that Fish is trying to express, that these guys are going to play their hearts out and they're going to play really hard, and we have to match that. Q. Is there anything to the fact that your team went through what it did with Boston last year and that kind of put these guys in the right place mentally knowing what they have to do then? PHIL JACKSON: We hope so, we really do. A lot of it depends upon very small things. This came is about inches and sometimes just a trifle, and last night, I mean, Howard had to miss two free throws to get us in the position where we could come back. So a lot of it depends upon more things than what we can control, but what we can control we want to. Q. I was just wondering, when you first started out in Albany, did you think then this was really something you were going to make a career of as a coach, or was this something you thought you might do for a few years and then move on to something else? PHIL JACKSON: You know, I had a private business at the time I was in, a partner in a business, and that was a very difficult time. I'm making this explanation probably a little bit larger than possible, but interest rates were anywhere from 18 to 15 percent during this period of starting a new business, and so after running the business for almost a year, the opportunity came for me to coach. It was a part-time, four-and-a-half, five-month operation, and it was something that could help with our business problems, and my partner was perfectly capable of running it by himself. This was an opportunity for me. But I went there kind of on a gamut to see what it was like and ended up winning a championship in my first full year. I came for 17 games the spring before. You know, I think it just went from one success to the next, and after being there for four years, I realized that I wasn't making a move and those salaries were at $25,000, and our kids were on the edge of high school, which meant college was soon, and I needed to get going in a career and I was turning 40 years of age. So I really literally quit the job and moved out into another field and looked at graduate school and law school, et cetera. You know, during that period of time, I had a series of interviews going on, but it was like either this has got to be the time or I've got to make a move for the sake of a family and the group of kids that are coming along. One of our sports announcers at a game, a New York Knick game, and he said basically to me, if you're having success and it's your bliss, make sure you do it, and successes will follow you. Certainly that's what's happened, and I've been fortunate to have the right opportunities follow behind it. But it was not something I had planned on doing when I was finished with basketball at age 34. Q. You have often talked about the journey being the most fun part as opposed to the destination. Is it still that way for you? Is the team building and the team chemistry, camaraderie, still as enjoyable as whatever result happens at the end of the season? PHIL JACKSON: I think it really is. I think that's really the key about coaching is that you watch these young men develop from individuals and guys that are trying to find a way to make their own game happen to a team which is willing to sacrifice sometimes their own personal goals for the goals of the group. I think that's a valuable experience not only for them, but it's a wonderful feeling for guys. THE MODERATOR: I'd like to thank you for your time this afternoon, and we'll see you tomorrow at Amway Arena. End of FastScripts |
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