Phil Jackson's post-Game 2 interview

June 8th, 2008, 10:42 pm ·


Q. What are you most struck by, your rally at the end or your difficulty scoring points on them the first three quarters?

COACH PHIL JACKSON: (Laughing) I'm more struck at the fact that Leon Powe gets more foul shots than our whole team does in 14 minutes of play. That's ridiculous. You can't play from a deficit like that that we had in that half, 19 to 2 in the first half in situations like that. I've never seen a game like that in all these years I've coached in The Finals. Unbelievable.

Q. What do you tell your team now about being down 0?2 in The Finals? How do you get them to stay confident?

COACH PHIL JACKSON: Just one of those playoff things. Home?court advantage, they held serve, and we go home and do what we have to do on our home court. That's what it's about.

Q. There was a point early in the fourth quarter where Leon Powe kind of just went right down Main Street and dunked. At that point I was wondering, is there a point at which the Lakers are going to become more physical and take control of the game in that regard, because it seemed as if there was a lot of opening up and all momentum and physicality seemed to be going their way?

COACH PHIL JACKSON: Yes. That play was a situation where Vladdy did a trap in the backcourt and opened it up, and Gasol was afraid to leave Garnett for an easy basket. But it was a poor play, an awful play. I kept telling the team, we played as poorly as we could possibly play for two and a half quarters in the middle of the third quarter. We just can't play any worse than this.

But that was an example of even a situation where we were even more at ease ?? at dis?ease, I guess, in our defensive end. But from that point on, I thought that we rallied in the game.

Q. Do you have a theory on why the foul shot disparity was so pronounced in this game?

COACH PHIL JACKSON: You know, I think that reporter hit it right in the head, the aggressiveness swayed the effective calls. They were aggressive. They went to the basket. We didn't take charges in situations that we had charges to take, and the first half the contacts subsequently ended up being a foul shot. I thought that that was what we tried to focus on when we came in at halftime is we have to stop the penetration and get that accomplished, but they got off to another big jump in the third quarter and put us back on our heels again.

Q. Which Celtics team are you expecting to show up at Staples Center, the one that struggled on the road for most of the playoffs or the one with momentum on its side, the one that played better on the road?

COACH PHIL JACKSON: I'm not worried about which Celtics team shows up. I'm worried about what Lakers team shows up. That's the one that moves the ball and we do things well on the offensive end, and you saw that as the game progressed that we started finding our rhythm on the offense.

Q. Any feelings on which Lamar Odom shows up?

COACH PHIL JACKSON: Well, Lamar got confused out there tonight, and that was difficult for him. Situations that got him into foul trouble and little offensive sequences that ?? rather than just taking a shot or making the right play, looked like he was a confused player out there at times. We'll try and get that straightened out.

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