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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SUNS v LAKERS

May 24, 2010

Phil Jackson

PHOENIX, ARIZONA: Practice Day

Q. Now you've had a night to sleep on it, why more than anything else did you guys lose last night?
COACH JACKSON: We played poorly. And I think their aggression at the start of the game helped us do that.

Q. Have you thought more about Bynum if he's going to play more?
COACH JACKSON: I think he's going to be fine.

Q. Were you just playing mind games before?
COACH JACKSON: No, I talked to him this morning. He feels like he's okay. I was worried that he was impinging his ability to play by concern about his health, his status. And he says he's okay.

Q. What did you see about his game last night that brought you to that conclusion?
COACH JACKSON: There was a play where Dragic takes the ball to the basket, makes a 2-point basket on it. Drew went over and picked up his third foul, I think it was. He came down on that knee specifically and was able to hold his own, and he came out of that without any problems.
And that was a concern. And I wanted to talk to him about it this morning. He said he was fine.

Q. (Off microphone)?
COACH JACKSON: Yeah, I have. I can't remember whether it was New York or Golden State, never in a playoff game.

Q. Can you tell if Andrew is favoring that knee at times over the last several weeks?
COACH JACKSON: No. I've seen it before. But I thought he ran okay last night. That's the other thing I wanted to watch on tape, to make sure that he looked like he was running all right on it.

Q. What are you doing to try to combat the zone, anything special or just keep running the triangle and finding the open?
COACH JACKSON: The triangle obviously is an overload offense for you guys that are pundits. And so you basically take a zone into an overload, which is natural anyway.
But the idea of the movement that comes out of the overload is important for us. And our movement was poor, was inconsistent. Passing was very poor at that time. And the second half we figured it out. And we played well against it. But our defense is what faltered the second half.

Q. 32 3s the result of you not handling the zone well? Is that the same thing you saw in the first round, you guys just didn't execute the offense the way you wanted; that would be the case whether it was zone or man?
COACH JACKSON: There's a reason why some guys are open. And those guys that were open, that took some of those shots, have to figure out why they're open. Because they're not closing out on them. So they have to be resistant and take the better shots.

Q. Even though Andrew's not limping, he obviously knows he has a torn meniscus. Is he not his aggressive self knowing that I can't go full hard, that he could hurt it more?
COACH JACKSON: I think it's possible. It's also possibly because the little change they made in the brace that he wears, so that it does give him full extension now. So he's running the limited extension that still may be an issue.
But it's not really -- it's not really about the knee. I think it's about that impingement perhaps that holds him back from running full out. I think he's going to be okay.

Q. Given that Nash may have been a broken nose do you expect that to affect him?
COACH JACKSON: You know, he's gone through a lot of stuff in the last two or three years in playoffs. I don't think it's going to bother him. I think, on second thought, Ginobili, it really affected his game. I thought his game really tailed off after the broken nose. So it's probably an individual thing.

Q. The first two games, it seemed you kept Nash out of the paint. Game 3 seemed like he found those seams. Why or how?
COACH JACKSON: You know, he stayed aggressive with the ball. We made him stop, pick it up, detour, et cetera, in the first couple of games. This game, I thought he still edged, sought to dig a little deeper, came around the baseline with the ball, continued to just dribble. We didn't get the ball stopped.

Q. How much healthier is Kobe since Game 4 of the Oklahoma State series, and does he look like a different player out there?
COACH JACKSON: Yeah. But, again, this is an issue that we have to monitor and he has to monitor from game to game. And the duration of distance between these games have helped him out a lot.

Q. (Off microphone)?
COACH JACKSON: He needs to have a better understanding of what his guard role is. He's having trouble reading the defenses. Aggressiveness offensively, his athleticism, all those things are very positive. Those little errors and mistakes me makes in the process of being between scoring and operational guard role, those are the things where he's going.

Q. Amar'e, obviously pivotal in the game. (Indiscernible).
COACH JACKSON: It's successful. I don't see why they won't continue to try to do it. That's probably what they're going to look for. Both he and Lopez were a factor in that way.

Q. As much as you seem to miss Andrew's size a couple of years ago against Boston, do you have concerns, if you're fortunate enough to advance, what he might be able to bring against the front line that they have?
COACH JACKSON: We just have to be concerned with this one right now. This is the only thing there is, is the Phoenix series. If you don't stay focused on that, there's nothing else. So you have to play immediately for this series. Forget about whatever else is down the road.
Andrew at the start of the playoffs, when this initially happened, we discussed holding him back, having something, a procedure done similar to what Brandon Roy had done and maybe get him back for later on in the playoffs.
It just didn't make sense for Andrew. So we just go forward every game.

Q. Why didn't it make sense?
COACH JACKSON: Duration. And Andrew hasn't responded really. Everything that he's done with therapy and procedures that have been done in the past have taken longer than three or four weeks, could have been six or eight. And that was too long.

Q. How does Robin Lopez change the way you defend them if you're successful?
COACH JACKSON: He's got great size. An asset for Nash to use. He did some things shooting the ball early in the game. Surprised us. Shot in his range. Got rebounds and dunks, obviously. But his size, I think, bothered us a lot in the zone aspect of covering territory back there.

Q. How much did Lopez benefit the back court?
COACH JACKSON: Some. I think his speed hurt. I think we can go small with him in the lineup and still have that speed and mobility. So I'm not that concerned about it.

Q. As a coach, don't you love this, having to figure out the zone (indiscernible)?
COACH JACKSON: It's so much fun, I can hardly wait for tomorrow.

End of FastScripts

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