Phil Jackson
Phil Jackson
Philip Douglas "Phil" Jacksonis an American professional basketball executive, former coach and former player, currently serving as president of the New York Knicks in the National Basketball Association. Jackson was the head coach of the Chicago Bulls from 1989 until 1998, during which Chicago won six NBA championships. His next team, the Los Angeles Lakers, won five championships from 2000 until 2010. In total, Jackson has won 11 NBA titles as a coach, surpassing the previous record of nine set...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth17 September 1945
CityDeer Lodge, MT
CountryUnited States of America
We were flat tonight. We are still not quite good enough to stay with a team like that.
We had some dramatic plays down the stretch. Kobe stayed very well inside of what we were trying to do. We kind of died on the vine a couple of times when the shot clock was running down. Then we were able to find that penetrating pass. We were able to find a couple of things that worked for us.
I wouldn't ask him to go on the trip. We want him to stay behind, work out and get an opportunity to condition himself. It makes no sense for him to go along on the trip and stay in the hotel while we play.
We remind our players that this is something that was a special night in a heated situation but it's not going to be a steady diet for us. The onus on Kobe is to stay inside the team offense. The onus on the players is to pick it up a little bit better.
We've got a week that's real busy ahead of us. We've got to stay the course, and that's important for us right now.
We had some luck with us tonight, ... We were fortunate to stay in this game. We made a lot of mistakes, obviously, but we learned from them.
He stayed very well inside of what we're trying to do.
I've seen quite a few guys do that in his situation, focused. He wanted to stay in, in the second quarter. He asked to stay in so he could get loose, get a second wind.
He played with the energy and the enthusiasm and threw his body around out there, things that we want to see players do. That helped us. I thought he ran out of gas at one point in that fourth quarter. Otherwise, I probably would have had him stay on the floor.
When you get off to a lead like that they usually catch up. Today we kept them at bay. It's good to be back in the playoffs.
When you have guys like Dixon and Blake basically have career nights, that really sets you on the edge as a team. We didn't come out with the intent to play defense tonight.
With our team, we're still learning what's a good enough lead. We didn't use the clock wisely and they made some big plays.
There have been some things that have happened over the years that have been really special in my life, and this is one of them.
We're not looking for Kobe to score 50 or 30 or 80. We're just looking for it to fit together. We want players to blend their talents together.