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NBA FINALS: CELTIC v LAKERSJune 5, 2010Phil JacksonLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day Q. What does Pau mean to you, to have the same kind of effort he had the other night? PHIL JACKSON: Just play the game. He just has to keep working hard and pursue the ball. I think that's probably one of the best things he did offensively. He went to the boards, pursued the ball, got offensive rebounds, got some put-backs. That made a big difference. Q. (Off microphone). PHIL JACKSON: You know, the cast of characters are almost the same. You know, Garnett, Perkins, you know, so they have Davis. There still are some guys there that are the same people. So I think that's the only thing. Q. What do you guys gain or lose from having two days off in between games? PHIL JACKSON: I think we gain some time for guys that obviously can use time, control some of the things that happen with injuries, an opportunity to digest some of the things that are ongoing, concerns about our team's effort, where we have to expend more energy, more focus. I think you lose a little bit of the continuity of that nervous energy that you kind of build up to get into a series, so you can lose a little bit of your guard -- being on guard from that. So I think that'll be something we have to be prepared for. Q. How important is having Andrew not just for what he can do but in terms of almost like a ripple effect in keeping Pau in his position and allowing you to kind of maintain rotation? PHIL JACKSON: Well, he's a big package to have to deal with down there for their team. It keeps guys at home, operates in a way that they can't help as much in situations where there's screen rolls with Kobe, for example, that they have to stay home and prepare to deal with him, if it's a punch-in or a lob to the basket or something. So those things, I think, really help. His length is obviously a problem, his size. You know, he got quite a few good minutes out there on the floor the other night and gave I think really good backup for our team, with Lamar's foul situation and on the bench as much as he was. Q. The news is that Tom Thibodeau is taking the Chicago Bulls job. I want to know if you can give him one piece of advice work working for Jerry Reinsdorf. PHIL JACKSON: I can't give him any advice. He's a sharp man. He knows the business. He's been around it long enough. Chicago is a rabid sports town, that's for sure, and you have to produce if you're in Chicago, otherwise like some of those other cities that expect winners, things happen. And production is a real missing entity in the Bulls' last ten years, and they really want to get back at it. They think they've got some quality players now to do that. Q. Teams that play each other and know each other, where does mental approach and effort come in versus some of the match-ups? PHIL JACKSON: Well, because it's more visualization. What someone is going to do, you know their habits. I think more than anything else, you kind of -- you get an idea of what their first reaction is going to be and how you can react to them in a way in which hopefully you can control some of the activities they have, if you're a long-time rival. If you're making the adjustments, you're going to try other approaches, different approaches that you have to make adjustment-wise, whether you have to push someone to his off hand, where you have to get up underneath a guy and get him off the block and destroy his vision in the process. These are things that veteran players who have experienced against rivals try to adjust to from game to game. Q. (Off microphone). PHIL JACKSON: You know, we really want our players to settle into this game. I thought we were keyed up. I thought we got early fouls. I think the action that ensued between Ron and Paul kind of instigated maybe a little bit of a cautionary sign, and as a result we ended up with players on the bench that we didn't want on the bench. They did, too, obviously, but we didn't want to settle into our game, settle in, play our defensive positions in a way that were solid but weren't creating fouls and putting them on the line as often as they were. This means holding your position, not getting out of position, relegating switches to need, help situations that are necessity, not by chance. Those are the things. Q. From what you saw on tape of the Eastern Finals and what you saw in person the other night, what are your observations on Garnett's game offensively? And does he look hesitant to you with the ball? PHIL JACKSON: You know, he's still shooting the basketball well. He moves the ball onto his open teammates. He's setting good, solid picks. Some of them more solid than others. His defense is pesky. He's still trying to block all those shots after the whistle and making sure that nothing goes in. I'm still seeing a guy that has the same mental attitude. He had one thing at the end of the game where he had like a point-blank shot at the end of the game. I think everybody made a big deal out of that. He didn't stop it, it might have slipped out of his hands, and he had an opportunity to make a basket and it didn't go in, and I think people overreacted to it. Q. I was wondering if you could just reflect on your life and accomplishments of John Wooden. PHIL JACKSON: You know, I guess of the 150,000 people that are reciting John's legendary fame, I just stand in awe of the guy. I think as a young basketball player growing up and watching the '62 Bruins, the '63 Bruins, the era that I came out of high school and watching this team, this pesky team of 6'5" guys, Keith Erickson and Walt Hazzard, Gail Goodrich roll out a great record and play the incredible defense that they played with the speed that they played at, I think that that was my first awareness of John Wooden. You know, obviously one of his Final Four games was against my colleague, Tex Winter. They had great a rivalry going. Tex always tells the story that his team was ahead by four points going into the last stretch of the ballgame, and there was a blizzard out in Kansas. The game's in Kansas City which was close to Manhattan, Kansas, where he was coaching at Kansas State, and then the UCLA girls showed up and the cheerleaders led his team on, the Bruins, on to victory. He said, I think the referees got enamored with the Bruins cheerleaders, all those beautiful California girls. So that's a 40-year ago, 50-year ago vision in a man who was eventually -- went on to win nine more championships in a number of years. He did it then with unbelievable talent, talent started coming in his direction with obviously Lew Alcindor - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - and a myriad of other players that came in there. But that first initial group won has always kind of a special place as to his activity, how he prepared his teams, their defensive mindset, and the things that he really believed in basketball as a coach. End of FastScripts |
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