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NBA FINALS: MAGIC v LAKERS

June 5, 2009

Phil Jackson

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day

Q. You said last night things turn on a trifle in this game, and I wonder, what's the ideal disposition given that truth? What attitude are you trying to assume with respect to that?
PHIL JACKSON: Well, you know, I think it's more than anything else to go out there and really seize the day, go out there and seize the momentum, find that period of time, and you hope you build those momentum swings a couple times during a half, and stem the length of their swings or whatever it is. It's just about runs. It's about who can seize that momentum.
A lot of it is about going out and capturing what's the actual essence of the game. Players get to learn that. Kobe really stepped into that yesterday in the third quarter and found that.

Q. As you look at your second stint back with the Lakers, basically how has your team gone from where it was two years ago to where it is now?
PHIL JACKSON: When I was asked at the behest of Jerry Buss and contingent family to come back and coach, we had a collaborative effort. In the lottery that we were in that year, we got the 10th pick. They felt real uncomfortable about putting me in a position of having to pick up a 17-year-old player in Andrew Bynum. I said, you know, I can see that he's a future player that could be a 15-year player for our team. We don't anticipate that he's going to be playing at the level that we will need to have if we're going to make a run for it in three or four years at the earliest.
With that in mind, we went forward from that time because we knew we had used a No. 1 draft pick that was going to take some time to come into fruition. We got fortunate last year to be able to find another opportunity, which was really the result of the collaboration of the Shaq trade, that eventually ended up to be the replacement of Pau Gasol, and that changed the difference in our ballclub.
Now, in the process, we went back out, and Derek Fisher's behest, reconsidered bringing him back to the team, and that kind of changed the essence of what the team was between two and three years ago, to add Pau Gasol and have Derek Fisher back on the ballclub.
In the process Trevor Ariza has been brought in and a number of the players have been brought in to fill, including the trade we made this year.
Mitch Kupchak and Jimmy Buss has really done a good job of kind of filling out our roster to a position now where we really feel like we're talented, whereas three or four years ago we were young and inexperienced.

Q. Can you just elaborate on Fish's impact, what he's meant?
PHIL JACKSON: He brings a sense of professionalism to the game. He's a daily leader, where he goes out and regardless of what the situations are, he's at the field. He's at the place. He doesn't miss games, he doesn't miss practices. He leads from the moment that, say, the ball is in the racks. We're going to stretch, he's out there first and foremost, and that kind of professionalism is a great example to our younger players.

Q. We spent a lot of time talking especially to the veteran players about seizing the opportunities, you don't know if you're going to get another chance at the Finals and things like that. Does that apply to coaches, as well? How do you guys internalize those sorts of opportunities?
PHIL JACKSON: You know, I think that you always are looking backwards when you do that. I think sports is a forward-looking activity. It's always about what's there. I think when you get done and finished with it, you can always rue the day.
One of my friends and colleagues and also kind of a mentor was Red Johnny Kerr, and Johnny was the announcer in Chicago for a number of years I was there. We used to sit and chat a lot, and he said at one point, I came into this game after going to The Finals in '55 and ended up going to The Finals with Syracuse in my rookie year, and I thought, hey, this is a great life. And then he said, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain came into the game and suddenly I never got back to The Finals again.
That's kind of what happens in this game. All of a sudden events take place that change the course of your dominance or where you're going to be, and so it's very important. So I think you're right that our veteran guys really know how valuable this is.

Q. Do you guys make those same assumptions, though, as coaches about opportunities early in your careers?
PHIL JACKSON: Without a doubt.

Q. When you first got Kobe Bryant, was his level of foot work at the point where it's at now, or is that something that he's improved upon as he's gone on?
PHIL JACKSON: We think that he's always been a student of the game. There's some things that we've always worked with him on, particularly where he gets his shots from and how he got his shots. Foot work has always been something he's worked at on his own. He does a really good job with that.

Q. Do you think that growing up in Italy playing soccer had anything to do with it?
PHIL JACKSON: I think all sports have an influence on people. You know, I'm one of those coaches that always used to sit and interview a prospective draft choice and ask them how many different sports they played. I wanted to know if they play baseball, basketball, played football, soccer, what, because I think all those sports have a great influence, and I like players that have multiple talents because I think that every one of them relate to a different form of maybe industriousness or a sense of skill that are enhanced by basketball. Basketball is a very skilled sport. But we need guys that can throw the basketball like a baseball, and we like guys that have foot work like soccer that you're making a reference to.
So I think that's really important. And I think that being in Italy, it's such a great priority in that Europeans are into the shooting of this game. I think Americans are into the power aspect of this game. I think that's a big influence in European basketball is the shooting aspect.

Q. Lastly, is there a compare and contrast between Kobe's foot work and Michael Jordan's?
PHIL JACKSON: Well, I've told this story before, but my offices, when I was first head coach of the Bulls, were just ten feet off the apron of the basketball court. One day I came out, and Michael Jordan was learning from Scottie Pippen foot work from a corner sequence that we used because Scottie could make the foot work and dunk with his left hand, and Michael always envied that. So they were working prior to practice on how to get that done with foot work that was necessary.
That impressed me. They were both young at the time, and Scottie just had a real talent for those. Both of those guys were great teachers with those teams in developing foot work not only for themselves, but for their teammates.

Q. Kobe was out here last night saying how his kids are calling him Grumpy from the Seven Dwarves because he's grouchy and so focused on getting this done. There's a lot of mood measuring that goes on out here. I wonder when you guys are behind closed doors or practicing or in the locker room, is that his persona at those times or is it for public consumption?
PHIL JACKSON: No, he's been very quiet and focused. I think that we went through two levels of these playoffs where I was always on the team about letting pressure off, because we had won and we'd leave the pressure off, and then we'd come back and somehow or other we couldn't manufacture the energy necessary. I think he just really took that aspect of it as a serious element of where you have to go with these playoffs. You have to stay driven and motivated, and I think it's really important that he takes that leadership role for this team.

Q. It seems like during the playoffs the game is played differently than it is during the regular season, maybe more half-court emphasis. In what way would you say the game is officiated during the playoffs as opposed to the regular season?
PHIL JACKSON: You know, that's a really interesting question because I know if Rick Adelman were here we would probably have a conversation about the playoffs in '92, Portland versus Chicago. Prior to the series between Portland, Portland was in The Finals in the West with Utah. If you remember, Buck Williams and Karl Malone got in just some outrageous wrestling matches, and the NBA came into The Finals with the fact that this was not the kind of basketball that we wanted to see exhibited as the NBA game.
It kind of changed the context of how Portland could play. Buck Williams got fouls. And I think there was kind of a mood as to how is the game going to be played.
For example, in this particular playoffs, we said, how many offensive fouls have been called on screens? There hasn't been any. You don't see them being called out here. Suddenly screens all over the court are just let go, regardless of how physical they are. So there's a certain tendency to let things go in a series of playoffs that may not be stopped and addressed until maybe next fall when the coaches get together with the league and say this has gone overboard, this went too far.
That year in particular that I'm referring to in '92, it got too physical in the post, and they had to put a stop to it. But right now we see a lot more screen rolls in our game than we've ever seen before, and the screens are much more physical and they're much harder to get through. You have to fight your way through almost every screen. So that's changed basketball a little bit, the sequence of playoffs.

End of FastScripts

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