	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: CELTIC v LAKERS

June 17, 2010

Phil Jackson

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Game Seven

Q. It seems like you're in The Finals every year, but you've never coached in an NBA Finals Game 7. Does this feel like a normal Finals game to you? Are you nervous, excited, or talk about the anticipation of this game.
PHIL JACKSON: I'm keyed up. I mean, I think it's natural to be keyed up. But I think every final game has its own level. But I don't think it's any more than normal about a game that has as much importance as this has.

Q. Is this you keyed up?
PHIL JACKSON: Yeah, keyed up.

Q. How much realistically can you expect out of Andrew? And what's going to happen with the matchups if he has to go up against Rasheed?
PHIL JACKSON: Well, match-ups could be difficult, depending upon whether they start Rasheed or Davis, makes two different things happen. Andrew I think can play ten minutes a half. That's kind of what our training staff has said, unless he has a landing or a turn or something that ends up irritating that particular part of his knee that has some loose tissue, and then he gets, of course, lack of function in the muscles. So that could be it.
I think it'll all depend on his transition, his ability to get up and down the court.

Q. A bit of a follow up on that first question: You have been here so many times. You have won more NBA titles than anyone else. If you can delve deeply into yourself, when you say you're keyed up, you say it so matter of factly and it doesn't seem like you are. What's going through your heart and mind right now?
PHIL JACKSON: Well, the level of coaching where you're like, what to anticipate, trying to get to the point where you read what your opponent is going to do, is always a key. Trying to have the key about where is the surprise going to come from, how to anticipate what's going to happen, those are always important things. And then as a coach, trying to ready your team so they're ready to play the kind of game that they have to play in this situation, which is -- we always talk about basic basketball, but it's basic basketball with a lot of impact and a notion of really high energized game.
Playing with great intensity and yet not out of character is really important for a coach.

Q. When you talked about anticipating surprise, you look at potential scenarios constantly, things that could catch you off guard?
PHIL JACKSON: Yeah, for sure. You try to be prepared. I mean, this team I think could actually scale down. They played Robinson and Rondo together, they could scale down and move down notches, maybe even put Pierce at a power forward spot, and Tony Allen at small forward and try to really activate the game. They'll have to play a different type of game tonight than they've played before.

Q. How much goes through your mind and body right now of potentially this being your final game coaching?
PHIL JACKSON: You know, I've resisted thinking about that and talking about it for the most part. It really isn't important what happens after this, it's just about this game right now. So I kind of resist those thoughts.

Q. Do the results have any bearing on what your decision will be?
PHIL JACKSON: I won't know that until the night is finished. Then I'll know how I feel about it.

Q. I'm not sure I understand that.
PHIL JACKSON: I'll know after the game is over.

Q. And you'll tell us then?
PHIL JACKSON: No, I won't tell you then, that's for sure. (Laughter).

Q. With both teams having logged over 100 games in nine months from when you began, how much of what we see at this time of year is affected by when we're seeing it, coming so late from when both sides began?
PHIL JACKSON: 110 games, 113 games, whatever it is, that we're playing tonight, 114th game, there's so much rote involved in what we do from the start of training camp until now, you just hope that's imprinted in these players so they can do those things. But yet the fatigue factor is so great that these players have to play through with the amount of energy that carries them in this thing. The adrenaline they'll run. And I think we saw that adrenaline run out in the second half of the game the other night, on Tuesday night, in both teams as a matter of fact, because this is really a straining point.
I can remember once Bill Bradley wrote a book "Life on the Run" and documented like 27 various injuries he had by the time the season was at this particular point in The Finals, and that's what's kind of going through these guys as far as the fatigue and the season. They're going to go out there and forget all about that and just play, and it's going to be the adrenaline rush that just pushes them through it.

Q. This being a new experience for everyone do you have any idea how your team is going to respond?
PHIL JACKSON: No, I really don't. I think they're going to be very amped up, I know that. But whether that high intensity makes shots go in or whether it's going to -- it's all about putting that ball in the basket and defending at the other end. I know they're going to react, and that's one thing I'm happy about.

Q. Any characters from your past, former players, former coaches, reached out to you in the last couple days to talk about this Game 7?
PHIL JACKSON: No. (Laughter).
I could say Luc Longley, but that is the only one, really. He's on the other side of the world. He can only approach me that way.

Q. This is your 13th NBA Finals as a head coach. Does unlucky No. 13 become lucky No. 7, given this is a Game 7?
PHIL JACKSON: I hadn't thought about it this way. That's a good perspective. We'll talk about that afterwards.

Q. At the start of the season you were talking about the difficulty of repeating and how long the road would be. Is it what you thought it would be or more?
PHIL JACKSON: No, this is -- I think this is fully anticipated. It should be tough, and it is. Yet we've had our really high moments in this playoff run. We've felt really good about ourselves, and we've had a couple games where we felt like we weren't up to par what we have to be to be a champion, and we had to reassert our feeling as champions. So this is the night that caps all that off.

Q. In the games where it's not quite working for you guys, Kobe has kind of brushed aside any alternate explanations and said, we just need to execute, but the deeper question is why isn't the execution there some nights? What's the difference in a game where it's working and it's not?
PHIL JACKSON: It's recognition. A lot of it is about recognition at a moment -- we always call it the moment of truth. There's multiple moments of truth in a game. There's usually one that really kind of spells what this game is going to be like or a moment that changes the course. But there's a moment of truth when the ball comes up that players recognize what they have to do, whether they're going to initiate an action that we call automatics, so where they're going to go into a rote memorization type of thing where they get into a comfort zone. What we've been trying to push them through in this whole series is that you can't do that with the Celtics. You can't go to a comfort zone and just go play basketball as you would at a practice that's the fourth day after you've played three consecutive games, three out of four nights. You have to do something special. There has to be some activity that's well thought out and there's a moment of truth in which you have to do that.
We had multiple situations in which we did that the other night. We had many situations we didn't do that in Boston in Games 4 and 5.

Q. If you don't come back, this could be your last pregame press conference ever. Have you dealt with that emotionally yet?
PHIL JACKSON: Well, someone said I might never have to speak to you again after this night. I said that would never happen, I never could be that fortunate. (Laughter).

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297