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 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'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.
To me, right there, enough said - Kobe Bryant (third team), not acceptable.
We got in a situation where we were waiting for Kobe?s hand to get hot. We started trying to force it in to him and that hurt us. Kobe had a hard time chasing Dixon around screens.
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.
We were relying on Kobe and Kobe couldn't shoot the ball because of a hand injury. He was just reluctant to shoot.
Kobe is missing out by not finding a way to become part of a system that involves giving to something larger than himself.
Kobe had to take some heat for that, as if he was the one who manufactured that (O'Neal) trade. All those things were made to look like there was a scapegoat in this situation, and there wasn't.
Kobe fought his way through it tonight. It was one of those games where the numbers of shots he took was too high, but he thought he was going to get fouled and he took the shots because he felt the pressure on him.
Kobe was waiting for his game to get hot and it never happened, and we tried to force the ball into him and it cost us.
Kobe played a game in which he really controlled the offense from his position. He really doesn't play guard very often. We had people open because he got double-teamed. In the first half, Cook hit his shots.
I think he gave the ball up in various points of the year, and I think there's been a fine balance between guys stepping up and making shots and Kobe trusting his teammates. It hasn't got to the point where it's not happening, where I'm disappointed, but there's opportunities that still could be there that have to be exploited even more and we have to recognize that as a team.