Phil Jackson Quotes (191 Quotes)


    I will say that I had a number of teams there with Chicago and the Lakers that had over 45 wins or close to that at the All-Star break and the last third of the season is much more difficult. It's really tough.

    We were relying on Kobe and Kobe couldn't shoot the ball because of a hand injury. He was just reluctant to shoot.

    I'll just say that hopefully they've drained the mud out of the building, and the termites aren't going to eat the buildings away in between the time we get down there. They made a good judgment probably to get this back in, and that's the important thing about it.

    You have to give that team some credit. Three-point shooting is not an easy task.

    Teams have streaks, they get on a run, and this is fortunate for us because this team had been dying to do something like this for a couple years now.


    We have teams pressing us. We have teams that are almost in the same situation as we are. It would be great for us to step ahead of them and up the ladder in our standings.

    I'm not going to weigh in on that one. I think that water is a little deep. I think that he measures himself against a season. I've always given him credit for that and he knows what the end-goal is. He's got a tremendous amount of pride and I anticipate that's a process that he's going through. He'll be there when playoffs are going and he'll probably be at his peak at that time.

    We couldn't stop their second chance points down the stretch. I thought we had a good shot at winning the game. It was well fought.

    And then mentally, do I have the patience to see that through

    Love is the force that ignites the spirit and binds teams together.

    You saw the apparent schizophrenia of these teams. They play great for a while and then they have trouble operating. What you see is young teams learning to play a consistent game. No quality in the direction of their discipline.

    I think our defense was confused at times. There were some defensive lapses, and they have an experienced team, which took advantage of some of our young kids.

    I thought we had a really good defensive first half. We found momentum at the beginning of the second quarter and established a lead.

    I wonder if they ever are. I thought they might let that go this year, but it didn't seem apparent at all. Right away, he got booed. He just may be one of those guys that has to carry that for a year or two until another group comes along that gives him a break.

    The longer you stay the harder it is to reach the ears and minds of young ballplayers, ... I think I stayed maybe one year too long in Los Angeles, and as a consequence this book is the result.


    I think it's a matter of trust, a matter of rebuilding the trust that we had, ... And yes, I have talked to Kobe he actually called me this morning to congratulate me on the job. And I felt confident that he's confident that we can go forward.

    I feel very comfortable saying I more than likely will not come back and coach, ... The health issue is very important.

    We can't feel sorry for ourselves. That's the great thing about basketball, you have to go out there and play another game. We're just going to have to bounce back.

    She comes to attack you every time you come through the door.

    He reached behind to knock the ball loose, and (Palmer) made the call. This is the second game where we've had inconsequential plays land us on the free-throw line in the last seconds of the game.

    Probably would have been sitting on the bench with Connecticut. Who knows That's just hypothetical stuff you can't even project. But it certainly is a talented team. The growth that he has had here, I think, has been a beneficial factor for him in his overall game.

    They know they can get scoring from three players every night, and sometimes all five can score. It's an all-inclusive thing.

    If you meet the Buddha in the lane, feed him the ball.

    I thought it was vindictive. I don't like to see it because he's one of the guys that we nurtured here. He was contributing to us a lot in the championship (run) two years ago.

    I didn't see him, but I heard the noise and wondered what was going on. It was great he came by.

    It seems like they played really hard against Sacramento, didn't they That was their other opponent they had an option to play. It would seem like they want to choose us.

    That's a higher pace, higher fatigue rate, particularly when you play against this team. So it's important for us to understand how to do that.

    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.

    Our game plan was to exploit the middle and do the things we wanted to, but he (Bryant) was still supposed to be a force over on that side of the offense. I just felt he never really got in rhythm until the end, and we said Just go after it.

    Well, this is something I never thought could possibly happen, to be standing back again, less than one year after having been part of the dissolution of this organization and the changing of the guard, so to speak, and feeling so comfortable stepping back into this position,

    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.

    It was awful. He gave us a terrible game. He just didn't give us any productive minutes at all.

    I was surprised. I can hear the cheers too, but there were some boos. I think it was kind of retribution for what happened in Miami over Christmas. I think the Miami fans were so vocal over Kobe.

    It's a tall order, without a doubt. But that's the key to this series is how you're going to slow down the guy that makes this offense generate points and close out on the guys that are getting wide-open shots.

    It was a big win for us. We caused a lot of turnovers and stepped up the tempo knowing they played last night.

    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.

    I gave it my body and mind, but I have kept my soul.

    I didn't want to create an impediment in that situation. I wanted him to be productive. But it didn't seem to be working in that direction. I think more attention was better than less.

    I think he got drawn into the play and didn't make the right decision.

    It's great. But it's all about those teams that won it, ... I've got a mentor in assistant coach Tex Winter. He says, 'You're only a success at the time you perform a successful task. After that, you can't get a cup of coffee on it.'

    When the game was in hand I tried to take him out. But my assistant Frank Hamblen said, 'I don't think you can do that. He's got 77 points'.

    I felt at some times Kobe might have taken advantage of our flexibility,

    This is something I never thought could possibly happen, ... It's a pleasure to come back.

    It's not going to be about Kobe getting 45 points a night. It's going to be about how are we going to use all the talents to do what we have to do to take a team apart.

    When he's shooting well, I encourage him. We're trying to measure personal achievement with team goals.

    This is about Phoenix going back to their home court, trying to rally. One win puts things right at the edge again, and we'd have to come back and hold home court, which is a single-game situation. So we know there's a lot of work to be done before we're finished with this thing.

    They're all big (games) for us. We have 10 home games, three road games and we feel like we have to win really a high majority of those games to finish where we have to finish if we want to go forward to gain momentum for the playoffs.

    I don't mean to say that as a snide remark toward a certain population in our society, ... But they have a limitation of their attention span, a lot of it probably due to too much rap music going in their ears and coming out their being. So they need to get a focal point that lasts longer than a TV commercial or one short 15-second span.

    I've seen a few 60-point ballgames in my time, but none of them had been done by the third quarter. His 30-point third quarter was incredible.


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