Phil Jackson

DATE June 12, 2001 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Phil Jackson talks about coaching the LA Lakers
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

The Los Angeles Lakers and the Philadelphia 76ers face off again tomorrow
night in game four of the NBA finals, with the Lakers ahead by one game. My
guest is the coach of the Lakers, Phil Jackson. He's had an extraordinary
career. He led the Lakers to the championship last year. It was his ninth
championship, after winning six times as coach of the Chicago Bulls and twice
as a player with the New York Knicks. Jackson has a new book written with
Charley Rosen called "More Than a Game" that covers his time with the Lakers.
Jackson's earlier book, "Sacred Hoops," is about how his practice of Zen
Buddhism influences his approach to basketball. Phil Jackson stopped by our
studio in Philadelphia yesterday. I know what our listeners here in Philly
are thinking. `What about Larry Brown, the coach of the Sixers?' We were
hoping he could join us for an interview. He's unable to do that now, but
we're keeping the invitation open.

This is Brown's first time in the finals. Since Jackson is a nine-time
winner, I asked him what's at stake for him this time.

Mr. PHIL JACKSON (Coach, Los Angeles Lakers): Terry, I think the thing that
pushes a person, perhaps, like myself or competitive coaches, is--some of it's
fear of failure. And that's something you really have to live with is what's
it like to fail? For example, the overtime game in the first game that we
lost in this present series with the Philadelphia 76ers--we hadn't lost in two
months, as a basketball club, and we had won 19 consecutive games. And the
amount of emotion that was going towards us to be a landslide victor to sweep
through these playoffs was unrealistic. I knew it. The team knew it and yet
we had this kind of fantasy going on that we'd been playing so well, that the
loss, itself, you know, kept me awake almost all night. I woke up in the
middle of the night twice. And it's that kind of anxiety that goes along with
this coaching job bit you have to work with all the time to monitor the stress
and the amount of failure that you feel from losses. And so, yeah, it's the
constant pressure and push to make the team better and better and better as
they even go through playoffs, and then the ultimate desire that you don't
fail, that you have success and that you don't rest on your laurels.

GROSS: It puts you in a pretty impossible situation, since you're always on
top, to be anything less than perfect. You failed, compared to your standard.

Mr. JACKSON: Well, yes, but the thing about it is it's the overall kind of
picture, you know, more than anything else. Jerry Reinsdorf, the owner of
the Chicago Bulls, used to say, `I don't know how you can have a successful
year and then try to repeat it the next year. You just have two or three
months off and then you try to get stimulation to do it again the next year.
And as I've told this team after their successes last year that this year
would be much, much harder--which it's proved to be--because of the successes
that you have. They're hard to deal with. Almost success, itself, breeds a
certain amount of overstimulation or overpraise for one's self.

GROSS: So when you woke up in the middle of the night after that first game
in the finals that you lost, did you get any ideas?

Mr. JACKSON: Yes. Well, that's, really, where I think most of my ideas come
from is that semi-sleep state that you're in that sometimes feeds
subconsciously ideas that stimulate you that say, `This is some picture or
vision that you have.' And I think that's one of the things that I've been
fortunate to have that ability to make those things become real.

GROSS: So what did you think of?

Mr. JACKSON: Well, I saw that, you know, our super player, which is really
was our inspiration in a lot of ways, was Kobe Bryant. He has this wonderful
kind of elan, graceful game that's--there's a very ethereal quality of snaking
through and finding his path and being, yet, 6'7", but yet small enough to fit
in and get his--worm his way through the court in a driving kind of manner in
which, all of a sudden, he'll be at the basket and finishing big at the
basket--needed to have space. All of a sudden he didn't have that kind of
space and we had to reorient the court. Instead of playing at a 30- or
35-foot level, we had to start playing against this team at a 50-foot level.
In other words, beyond half court we had to start thinking about how we were
going to approach the basket and so that Kobe could approach the game that
way. And he did a much better job the last couple games.

GROSS: You think it has to do with that thought that you had?

Mr. JACKSON: It has a lot to do with it. I think that, you know, in the
process, then, you see how the team can flow and the players as they fit in.

GROSS: So where are you psychologically now? You're ahead by one game. What
are you telling your team about what kind of mental space they should be in
now?

Mr. JACKSON: Well, it's all about getting to know your opponent is what it's
about. It's about knowing their abilities and playing into what their
strengths are and finding their weaknesses and exploiting their weaknesses.
And you do it as the team as a character. You try and exploit that character
that the team has, but, also, the individual matchups that you have as a
group. And so it takes on a rather large chess game in a match. And from
game to game, then you make the adjustments. And the coach that I'm vs. in
this series, Larry Brown from Philadelphia--terrific coach--makes a lot of
adjustments. He has, maybe, a play or two a game in which there'll be a
different way to spring his specific player, Allen Iverson, who's really
their prime mover, and make him the feature that is that night's difficulty.
We have to make the adjustments on the run, then. And I'm trying to do the
same thing to him because he has such a great pressure team. They apply such
intense pressure on the ball and the movement of players that we have to
adjust our spacing and how we're going at their defense all the time.

GROSS: Sunday night when you were announced before the game starts, you stand
up. Everybody boos, you know. Sixers fans are very, very loud and very
loyal. So--at least they're loyal now that the team's doing well. Anyway, so
you're booed. All the members of the team are booed and, of course, anytime
somebody's doing a free throw, all the fans behind the basket are kind of
waving and throwing confetti around to distract the shooter. Does that get to
you or is it easy to get beyond that?

Mr. JACKSON: Last night in the midst of that intensity with, you know, I
think it was about a minute and something to go, I had a time out. There was
a little, specific anxious moment there, and inside of the din of the noise
there was this quiet space inside of me that I almost marveled at that I was,
you know, still very--felt very calm and I could try and calmly kind of, in
this midst of noise, not scream, but calmly kind of relate what I wanted done
to these players. And it was--I was very thankful that I had that space and
amazed that, you know, it was also there inside of me that I was that capable
of that calm and collected. It could be very anxious.

And I haven't always had that. I can remember on a Mother's Day game in
Madison Square Garden. That's on the fifth floor where the crowd was so loud
that you could feel the whole building moving up and down, which was an
amazing feeling. It's a suspended ceiling, you know, in Madison Square
Garden. And I had that feeling of being anxious for a second, being that
high, five stories up, suspended floor, and that emotional rocking of that
building, not just noisewise, but physically. And I had to find the calm
space.

But that's, basically, what we teach our players. We teach our players how to
do that through breath control and meditation. And I think that's really
helpful for us.

GROSS: Do they buy into that pretty quickly?

Mr. JACKSON: It's not easy. It's very difficult for these young players to
do that. They're--I have a statement that I use all the time with them. You
know, they're going down the highway at 70 miles an hour listening to their
favorite rap music, going as loud as it can go in their $5,000 sound system.
And there's rush hour traffic and they're eating McDonald's. And all of a
sudden their bite drops a glob of mustard and ketchup on their chest and they
look down. And when they look up, it's all red lights ahead of them. And
that's kind of how they're going through life at that speed. And the accident
is just one instant away.

And what they have to do is disengage and come into a space and be quiet and
have to be able to monitor their own minds a little bit. It's very easy to
keep it running quickly when you live this fast and you're moving this fast
and you play basketball at a breakneck speed, so we try to set them and make
them sit and be quiet. And it's difficult. It's difficult for them to do and
we usually break it from starting at three minute, to five, to seven, to 10,
as we move through the season, so that they can take some time and adjust to
that quiet space.

GROSS: Do you have them do anything like that during halftime?

Mr. JACKSON: We usually tell them to use breath--the breath--relaxation
breath at halftime. You know, I like to give them what I call a safe spot or
a quiet spot where they can go. And that's imagery, which is, like, you know,
can you remember back to the safest spot you were at when you were a kid? Can
you do that, Terry?

GROSS: The safest spot? I haven't thought of it that way. I...

Mr. JACKSON: You know where you would go if things weren't going right and,
you know, maybe your mother had scolded you or something and you hadn't done
well on the test and...

GROSS: My safest spot was always someplace in my mind, not a physical place
in the room.

Mr. JACKSON: Yeah. I had a spot that I went to and I know what it was like.
I could pull the covers over my head in a bed...

GROSS: Right.

Mr. JACKSON: ...and curl up in a fetal position, you know, and that was kind
of it. And I can remember that. And so I give them that, you know, `If you
have a spot that you can go to...'

GROSS: Right.

Mr. JACKSON: `...that relaxes you, I want you to be able to pull that out,
you know, when you go to the bench to take those'--I don't go with the players
right away when they come off the floor. I give them 40 seconds. There's a
minute and 20. I give them 40 seconds to take their time, to get a drink,
wipe the perspiration off, sit, relax. And then I want them to go to that
safe spot where they can quiet themselves. And when I come in to talk to
them, I want them to be receptive. And I think my guys do a really good job
at doing that. But you know, it's a different application for all of them.

GROSS: Phil Jackson is my guest, coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Let's look at Allen Iverson for a second, you know, the person who's going to
give you the most trouble...

Mr. JACKSON: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: ...and has given you the most trouble on the Sixers. What's the most
difficult part of figuring out how to guard him and keep him from shooting
baskets, something the Lakers have done more effectively in the second and
third games than in the first?

Mr. JACKSON: Well, we thought for a while after watching the last two series
that Philadelphia had vs. Toronto and Milwaukee, where Allen had some really
bad shooting games, that maybe we could give his shots and contest his outside
shot, and make him shoot 30 times to get 30 points and, you know, maybe that
would be effective. And after the first game, we realized that you've got to
deny him the ball because he'll get 40 shots. And at some level, the energy
that he creates by his constant, furious attack will create the energy that
this team thrives on, whether he misses in the offensive rebound or he gets it
back or he creates a foul. It's something that they thrive on because they
have that energy that he generates for the team.

And so we had to do some things like work on denial, work on which direction
we wanted him to run, chase him over the top so he had to go to his left hand
rather than chasing him underneath all those screens and let him come back to
his right immediately when he catches. And so you just try to work those
percentages to hopefully corral him in a corner or have him in an area where
he has a limited number of moves he can use, because he has a number of moves
that he has and he creates his own shots very well.

GROSS: He's comparatively short but really fast, so that must be really
different than, you know, having a strategy to guard somebody who's a tall
guy, a tall man.

Mr. JACKSON: Well, what Larry Brown's done very effectively is he has kept
the team concept even though one player is really the guy that's the prime
guy. He's going to touch the ball half the time. So if there's 90
possessions, he's probably going to get 40 to 45 touches in the course of a
game, and yet the team can thrive on it. It was very important because you
can't just automatically run two guys at him immediately when he catches a
ball because he has great spacing. That's what's real important about
basketball, is that he's got an available area to catch the ball and operate.
And so that's one of the things.

But what Allen does is his speed and his athleticism give him the opportunity
to do so many things that he develops things for his teammates--assists,
penetration. He's able to move the ball well enough when he gets
double-teamed, and that's the most remarkable thing, because a fella that's
that size at 6' in this game, getting smothered by guys 6'8" to 7', usually
doesn't have the vision, but he's got good vision. Even if he doesn't see, he
knows where his players are to make the pass that's available.

GROSS: My guest is Phil Jackson, coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. He has a
new book called "More Than a Game." He's in Philadelphia preparing for game
four against the 76ers in the NBA Finals.

We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Phil Jackson, and he's in
Philadelphia with his team doing the finals. And he has a new book, which is
called "More Than a Game," which he co-authored with Charley Rosen.

In Sunday night's game, Shaquille O'Neal fouled out. What have you been
suggesting to him to prevent that from happening in the next game?

Mr. JACKSON: Well, one of the things we know about Shaquille is that the road
vs. home is a different matter for us because of his intimidating size and his
presence. About every move he makes, you know, the fans are calling `three
seconds' or `offensive foul' or something; you know, they're really on his
every move. And so Shaquille gets more foul trouble, he gets more offensive
fouls, he gets more three seconds in the lane, those kind of violations,
during the course of an away game. So we're trying to tell him to limit his
activity, but not stop his game.

And Shaquille in the first half of the game had a lot of nice, easy turnaround
jump shots, jump hooks. In the second half of the game, they came after him
with double teams. And he tried to spin out of the double teams and, you
know, they were able to create offensive fouls by that activity level. They
really put him under a squeeze.

GROSS: He, in one of the press conference talks after the game, said that he
felt Matumbo was whining and flopping.

Mr. JACKSON: Yeah.

GROSS: And he said, `And you can underline that. You can quote me.' What
did you think about that? Do you think that was fair?

Mr. JACKSON: It was probably fair. As I say, everybody else--you know, when
you play a game like this was played, it's a very, very physical game, body on
body, which is totally against what the rules were supposed to be in the NBA,
which is against hand checking. You can't impede body progress of basketball
players on their cuts or dribbling the ball. But when it gets to this level,
those rules kind of fly out the window. They can't call everything because
there's so much intensity. So they say, `We'll let them play a little bit.'
You can let everybody play, but you can't let Shaq play. He's just too
incredible. He's too strong and he's too capable that no one can really stop
him.

What Shaq does is he makes a pivot. And what you can do when you pivot is
that you can use your extended arm and your shoulder in the pivot without
getting an offensive foul, as long as you're pivoting. If you step back and
hit somebody with an arm, that is an offensive foul. But if you're using
what's considered a pivot move, you have that legal right in that space. And
so depending upon how it's looked at, you know, it could be the old
offense-defensive charging thing that, you know, goes on as a judgment call
for referees. It's a lot easier for him to get that on the road than it is at
home. And what Shaq, I think, was referring to by Matumbo's floppy was, `Come
out and play me with that same kind of intensity everybody else is playing
with and I'll play you body on body.'

GROSS: Are you saying, too, that you think the officials had a double
standard?

Mr. JACKSON: They have a double standard for Shaquille. They have to. If
they didn't tilt it a little ways, I mean, he would be almost impossible to
stop.

GROSS: Let me quote something that you say in your book, and the book is
called "More Than a Game."

Mr. JACKSON: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: And you say, "The vast majority of NBA coaches are simply afraid to
talk about how the game is officiated. We're intimidated by the absolute
power of the referees to control a ball game."

Mr. JACKSON: We are, because as you saw in the last series in Milwaukee here,
in Philadelphia, the players from Milwaukee complained about the fact that
they weren't getting foul calls and they actually lost some poison control.
And there was a number of fines that were levied against that team. So
arbitrarily the league, you know, will fine people, and those fines carry with
them not only that, you know, financial remuneration to the league, but also
there's a certain feeling that if you do that, then you get them against you.
You're going to pay the price eventually by the officials. So you're
intimidated by the fact that, you know, you criticized the officials.

Our officiating in our league is great. We can't complain about it. These
guys have poise and they have control and they're professionals. It's an
impossible game to referee. I think if one was sitting here beside me, they'd
say the same thing because it happens so fast and it's so judgmental.

GROSS: What the worst time you've lost your temper recently with an official?

Mr. JACKSON: You know, I got thrown out of a game in the last series in the
finals of the West in which I never was either against the referees or said a
word about them. And I was ejected out of the ball game, which was
totally--it was an unfair situation. But in the course of the thing, the
players were so calm and controlled. They knew that it was an unfair
situation I was removed from the game. But they used it as a motivational
tool, and we went on a little run. And we were behind at the time, and it
looked like a motivational tool from my standpoint, even though it wasn't. I
was trying to just be part of the game and just be influential. And bam, they
took off and they had a great game from that point on. So without losing my
temper, something positive happened.

Now when I went in the locker room, I was very upset about not being able to
see the rest of the game. And I could vent in the locker room then at that
time.

GROSS: And so what were you thrown out for?

Mr. JACKSON: Encroaching on the referee's space. Now there's a coaching box
that basically--you're not supposed to get out on the court. You're not
supposed to cross the line onto the court when the play's in action. And
there's a limit that you can walk the court up to the scorer's desk. There's
a little slash mark there. But there's a place, a space out there where the
referees want to stand, which is at the free-throw line where they stand. And
so you can stand behind them or alongside of them. And I was standing
alongside of the referee below the free-throw line and he wanted more space.
And I said, `I don't understand why you want more space.' And for that he
gave me a technical, and I'd already had one other technical in the game, so I
was removed.

The other technical I got in the game was for making a signal, basically just,
you know, kind of hit my fist in my open hand. And the other referee that
hadn't made the call said that I was intimidating the other referee. But I
realized then that the pressures that these referees are working under must be
tremendous, and I had to back off the rest of the series. I've been very less
vocal and very less animated.

GROSS: Do you think that any of the referees ever think, `Oh, well, there's
the Zen guy venting,' you know?

Mr. JACKSON: They put you to the test. They really do. And a lot of times I
have a good relationship with them and working relationship. A lot of times
when I see that they're upset, I'll come out and just say, you know, `Are you
OK?' You know, `It's all right. You know, just stay under control. It's a
good game, just keep it going.' And I like to encourage the referees to have
a good game. I don't like to bend them in my direction so much.

GROSS: Phil Jackson is the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. They play
against the Philadelphia 76ers in game four of the NBA Finals tomorrow night.
Jackson also has a new book called "More Than a Game." Our conversation was
recorded yesterday. We'll hear more of it in the second half of the show.

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

(Credits)

GROSS: Coming up, coaching Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. We continue our
conversation with LA Lakers coach Phil Jackson.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Phil Jackson, coach of
the Los Angeles Lakers. They're in Philadelphia playing against the 76ers in
the NBA Finals. Jackson has already won the championship nine times--last
year with the Lakers, six times as coach of the Chicago Bulls and twice as a
player with the New York Knicks. Jackson has a new book called "More Than a
Game" that covers his time with the Lakers. Our conversation was recorded
yesterday.

Let's talk about your strategy with Kobe Bryant, a great shooter. You say
that when you got to the Lakers your problem with him was he didn't really
want to be a team player. He wanted to be the star, he wanted people to
follow him, but he wasn't that good at team work.

Mr. JACKSON: Kobe vaulted right to the NBA as an 18-year-old kid and took his
`lessons,' so to speak, in graduate work in the NBA rather than going to
college. He's a very bright kid and he's very astute. And when I was first
signed by the Lakers two years ago in June, he was there at the signing with
the book. "Sacred Hoops" was the name of that book. He had "Sacred Hoops"
with him, a book about the--a little bit about the offense and about my
philosophy. And we talked a lot. He was very anxious to work inside this
system of basketball that I like to work at. However, it really didn't match
his style of playing.

It requires a lot of giving up the basketball and moving without the
basketball. We say that the principles in this offense, you know, all things
given. You know, the ball's in your hands 20 percent of the time if there are
five players on the court. And Kobe wanted his hands more, 80 percent of the
time or whatever. And that's a real sense of power on the basketball court is
to have the ball in your hands a lot, because you can make the plays. You can
make the shot. You can't get shots if it's not in your hands.

So I had to really talk to Kobe about being a guard, being a playmaker and how
to make everybody else feel really important and good about what you're doing
for the team. And it just can't be you making spectacular plays. And he's
grown a lot and a tremendous amount. And in the book, "More Than a Game," we
talk a little bit about that in the course.

We had a struggle last year as we came through the year, and Shaquille felt a
little bit that Kobe was trying to make too many plays on his own when he
could make an easier play. My complaint with Kobe was that--or my plea with
Kobe was that, `If you give up the ball instead of putting yourself in a
dangerous situation when you go the basket, you're going to be healthier,
you're going to feel better, you're going to get through the season and into
the playoffs in a position where you can really put yourself all out on the
court. But right now, we want to play a controlled game and want to help our
teammates out, and to make the plays is the most important thing.'

And so we had a little bit of an issue about that this year again. It rose
again, and a lot was made out of it. And I think a lot of growth happened on
our team because of it. And the team went through the period of time in a
about two or three days, and it took about a week for us to get over it. But
then it lingered, because it's a publicity thing. It's like, you know, a
divorce or marital kind of thing going on with people that are famous. It's
going to come back and be public issue. And every time we had to go on the
road to the next town, it got harbored on time and time again.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. JACKSON: And finally the players had to almost heal it themselves by just
ignoring it and just going on by it and letting it happen.

GROSS: Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal are not only, like, the star players
of the team, they're the celebrities of the team.

Mr. JACKSON: Yes.

GROSS: You know, they have endorsements and they have their rap records,
whether they're released or not.

Mr. JACKSON: Right.

GROSS: You know, Shaquille O'Neal's been in a movie. I mean, they're big
celebrities. Is it harder when players become celebrities to take direction
from their coach?

Mr. JACKSON: Yes, it is. It's natural that you follow--you know, young men
will follow their own instincts or their own advice. But, yes, you're right,
the amount of money that you make, the amount of, you know, energy that's
formed around these ballplayers when they generate, you know, millions of
dollars that they create in a year, people follow, flock, listen, obey, coddle
them in many ways, and so it makes it difficult to give the kind of direct
orders that, you know, you as a leader want to do. So it has to be more
subtle, persuasive.

And I think most of us in this society are doing a much better job of that
than it was when I was a kid or you were a kid in the '50s and the '60s, that,
you know, people were pretty authoritarian. There was mister and misses and
you did this and that. And you went to school and shut up and sat down at a
certain time and stood up and put your hand over your heart and said the
national--the pledge to the flag. But you know, we're much better in this
country doing that kind of thing now and it's got a better approach, and I
think the coaches have made that adjustment. And Larry Brown's one of them
that's made a really big adjustment, have really survived and blossomed and
all that.

GROSS: I want to quote something from the book, and this is about Shaquille
O'Neal. You say, "He's a very endearing person who nevertheless always gave
the impression that he's never having fun on the court. I told him that I
expected his true personality to come to the fore." Why would that be
important, to show that he's having fun on the court?

Mr. JACKSON: Because that's who he is. And I think that, you know, what you
are in this game of basketball really comes through, your true nature, your
true personality. And basketball really exposes people, kind of like you get
to know people that are out there. And Shaquille is really a fun-loving guy
and he can also be an overpowering guy, an overwhelming person. And I'd like
to see him in that fun-loving area playing basketball more than I like to see
him in that overpowering area where he's light and nifty and freewheeling and
very, very athletic for a--I'm not even going to say for a guy. He's just
athletic. It doesn't matter if he's 7'.

GROSS: So how did he take to that suggestion?

Mr. JACKSON: Well, I think he's taken very well to it. And I've really
enjoyed the fact that, you know, at one time his interviews were so subdued
and so monotone and so flat that I thought that he was, you know, underplaying
who he really was. And I think he's been able to pick it up, to liven it up,
to be very funny, to expose himself. And I mean I even get a kick out of
watching--although I don't watch TV; very little--the Nestle commercials that
they show him picking up the machine. And you can see his fun-loving
attitude, you know, in the tights with the ribbons and he's doing the dance
routine, funny stuff, and that's Shaquille. He likes to clown.

GROSS: What did you learn about Shaq's strengths and vulnerabilities from
playing against him with the Bulls?

Mr. JACKSON: That he's really headstrong and that, you know, if you push him
in a certain way, he's still going to try and do it his way, and that you can
use that to work against him. And so I've tried to talk to him about being
more malleable and more adjustable and so he doesn't feel like, you know, he's
got to run through the wall every time, that he can make the adjustments. And
that, I think, is really an important aspect for him is that willfulness is
great, but willfulness used correctly is even better.

GROSS: My guest is Phil Jackson, coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. He also
has a new book called "More Than a Game." He's in Philadelphia where the
Lakers are playing against the 76ers in the NBA Finals.

We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Phil Jackson, coach of the LA Lakers. They're playing
against the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA Finals.

Sometimes players will try to, as he's about to make a shot, to foul him...

Mr. JACKSON: Yeah.

GROSS: ...figuring he's not going to make the foul shots. He won't make the
basket, then he won't make the foul shot so just go ahead and foul him.

Mr. JACKSON: Yeah. Right. Right.

GROSS: There's even a name for that, Hack a Shaq.

Mr. JACKSON: Right.

GROSS: So he did real well Sunday night with his free throws. He had eight
out of nine. I mean, that's...

Mr. JACKSON: Yes, he was very good. He didn't get any free throws the second
half. But the first half I thought it really changed the dimension of our
game, because everybody grows in confidence when he does that. And you saw
his shot was feathery and light and looked like it had a nice touch on it.

GROSS: So what did you do to encourage him to work on the free throws?

Mr. JACKSON: Well, Shaquille, that's an Achilles' heel and it's not him
alone as a big guy. There's a lot of big guys in this game that have not
perfected the free-throw shooting. But for him particularly, it was his
Achilles' heel. And when I coached against him and won playoffs in '94, I
think he shot almost 70 percent from that series. And I had what was known
then as the three-handed monster attack, that I would sacrifice my three
centers to foul him when he got the ball close to the basket. I was--he
blames me to this day for starting that Hack a Shaq thing. And I said, `Well,
I never fouled you off the ball when the ball wasn't in your hands so that you
had to make the ball. I think that's against the rules of the game.' So that
series I saw him really step into that challenge and make all those free
throws and eliminate the Bulls. This is the year that Michael came back for
17 games.

And when I got to the Lakers, I encouraged him, you know, to do something with
his free-throw shooting outside of our coaching staff. I like players that
want specific things sometimes to do it outside the coaching staff. And he
started attending to it very, very much with great dedication. I mean,
spending three hours sometimes at a time just to get it back down. You know,
three times a week he'd get into our gym maybe at night and shoot from 7 to 9.
And just took hours and hours to put himself in a position where he could try
and do this. This has been a real hurdle for him.

GROSS: It seems like it's important to him not only to--because he needs to
make those points, but also, I think, his playing. He gets frustrated when he
doesn't make the baskets and that throws him off.

Mr. JACKSON: Oh, it's very embarrassing. I mean, that's embarrassing to him
because everybody in the arena, you know, is yelling at you that you miss.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. JACKSON: They all expect you to miss. And you know all those balloons
that you were referring to before...

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. JACKSON: ...they're going crazy behind the basket are as distracting at
all. And all you have to is just one moment have that self-doubt at that
moment. It's enough to change, you know, what you can possibly do up there at
the free-throw line.

And Shaquille has a broken wrist at one time, so he can't use the normal flow
that a person would use with the wrist being able to bend almost 90 degrees to
the arm so that you have that nice loop in your shot. So he has to kind of
put the ball on his hand a little bit differently from that broken hand. And
as a result, it takes a different kind of mechanical skill for him to get the
touch and the length of the shot that he needs for a free throw.

GROSS: Frustration seems to be a problem for him, not only with free throws,
but, you know, if something goes wrong, it's going to get to him. And you
even write about--in your book "More Than a Game" you write about once he
actually tore the locker room apart. I mean, he threw all the tables over and
things were just all over the place because of a bad mood he'd gotten into as
a result of frustration. What happened, and, you know, as the coach what did
you tell him about that?

Mr. JACKSON: Well, it's only happened once since I've been on the team, but I
know it happened before I got here. And the frustrations happen at different
times. And I'd heard obliquely kind of about them. And when I got here early
in the--my first season, a year ago, we had a game in Dallas. And Dallas is
one of the teams that uses the Hack a Shaq attack where they'll foul off the
ball at any time as soon as the penalty--so they can get the ball back,
hopefully, with maybe one point or no points, that Shaq was shooting poorly at
the foul line. I think he was, like, 2-for-14, so that means that--it's
almost like having seven turnovers to go like that. And he went in the locker
room and tore the TV off the wall mount, which we use for video aids before
the game.

And, you know, I came in and, you know, went off on the team. `This is
unacceptable,' you know, `this is behavior that I can't accept,' you know.
`Maybe you want to beat your head against the wall, but don't--Who did this?'
you know, not thinking it was Shaq, and he pointed to a really tiny player on
our team named Ty Lue who's about the same size as Allen Iverson. He said,
`Ty did it.' And then everybody laughed and kind of got over it, and he went
out the second half and he was fine.

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. JACKSON: And then I talked to him afterwards about it. I really didn't
like that. I mean, I know he'd done it before, but I really didn't like a
display of anger that was taken out on something else. I'd like him to be
able to channel that and use it for himself.

GROSS: Do you feel like you got results on that?

Mr. JACKSON: Well, so far it's been good. I haven't had any incidents like
that since.

GROSS: He says in his book, `The greatest lesson Phil taught me was poise;
not to take myself out of a game because I was frustrated and wanted to punch
somebody.' He also says in his book that the first thing you asked him to do
was lose 15 pounds.

Mr. JACKSON: Yeah. Probably more. I think I said 30 to him, but...

GROSS: He only remembered 15 of them, apparently.

Mr. JACKSON: ...he's cut it in half. You know, Shaq is--I don't know. You
remember the comics Baby Huey when you were little?

GROSS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mr. JACKSON: Baby Huey was like this gigantic kid that was bigger than
everybody. Shaq is kind of like Baby Huey. God gave him a gift that, you
know, is like--he's just been huge probably his whole life, he's just been
this immense kid that has had this size and this athleticism that's been just
this, you know, God-given talent. And as he's grown older, as all of us do,
most of us do, at least--not you, Terry, but I have--he's put on some weight.
It's just natural. And he's done some weight training, and he's gotten
himself up over 300 pounds. And what happens to ball players is they develop
tendinitis, particularly pounding up and down on those legs they get
tendinitis in the knees.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. JACKSON: And for me, I thought Shaq could lose some weight and still not
suffer any from lack of strength or size and gain back a little more of his
career, perhaps more longevity in his game.

GROSS: Did he lose?

Mr. JACKSON: Well, he did that year, but he came back this year a little bit
heavier than he was last year when he started the season, even though he won't
admit to it. And, of course, our scales, you know, don't weigh him. We have
to take him to a, you know, football team scale or, you know, grain elevator
or whatever you can weigh on. But he says next year he's coming in at 298.
He wants to be under 300. I don't know if he's kidding with me or not.

GROSS: Phil Jackson is my guest, coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. And, by
the way, he does have a new book which is called "More Than a Game," and it's
mostly about coaching the Lakers and developing his coaching technique.

Can you compare the experience of coaching the Lakers and the Bulls?

Mr. JACKSON: No. It's still coaching, but it's so different. It's such a
different team. It's such a different relationship that I have with the team.
I'm the same person in many ways, different group of guys. The team in
Chicago were mostly young, married men with young families. It was kind of a
community of young kids growing up together, wives and families that were
involved and intertwined. There's really a remarkable resilience about that
team because they supported each other just unequivocally. Their roles were
ordered almost impeccably from Michael through Scottie Pippen down through
the order of the players that just all related very well as to how they had to
do it. They could support a character like Dennis Rodman for three years,
even though he was, you know, a maverick in many ways. And there was an end
in sight. They knew that it was--you know, there was an age in this team.
They knew that, `Hey, were going to last this year, maybe we'll get one more
year.' And we got that one more year, and then `Maybe we could do it again,'
then we had a three-peat championship.

But those players all moved into maybe retirement or moved on or quit the
game. And this group is a bunch of young players. It's a different
generation. There's very little--very few guys are married. There's not that
community. And yet we have a community that's altogether different and still
vibrant and very tight.

GROSS: I'm wondering if the age difference between you and the players, as
you get older and the players stay more or less the same age or even younger
than the previous team you coached, if there's certain differences that are
difficult to reconcile. And what I'm thinking of particularly is the whole
respect thing.

Mr. JACKSON: Yeah.

GROSS: Like the meaning of respect to a lot of people in their 20s now and
the meaning of disrespect and what can be interpreted as disrespect is
probably really different than, for instance, when you were playing or when
you started coaching.

Mr. JACKSON: Definitely. Without a doubt, Terry. I think you hit that point
very well, that it's--the last time we were in Philadelphia to play, Kobe and
I had a little bit of a tiff on the bench and I actually--it felt that he was
trying to do too much on the court, and he wanted to argue with me. And so I
sat him on the bench. I was willing to sit him in a certain point in the game
that I felt was important. Shaq was out again, so we were without two of our
stars for that period of time. I wanted him to know that I didn't want him to
argue with me at that point.

When we got in the locker room, we had another discussion and he felt like I
had disrespected him by imposing upon him the fact that he was being selfish,
again cubbyholing him into this curtain. And I said, `Fine. We'll watch the
tape together again and sort it out tomorrow.' So I realize, you know, that's
one disrespect, that, you know, `Don't pigeonhole me with what you think that
I was doing that, you know, is a preconceived idea that you have of my game.'

And the game itself is played to a little different beat. Hip-hop and that
kind of generational, you know, noise that's going on has a lot of kind of
gangster, not being respected...

GROSS: Right.

Mr. JACKSON: ...you know, being oppressed, you know, riding the line, living
at the edge, willing to sacrifice yourself for your own honor. Those kind of
things, I think, are big parts of the culture in this group of youth right
now. And I have to respect that for whatever it's worth. As much as I wanted
my elders to respect my particular beliefs that I had in the late '60s about
war and about countries going to war and about youth being drafted and so
forth. So, I mean, I have to respect where they're coming from and wonder
where it's taking them to.

GROSS: But some of that goes against some of your values. You know, that
living on the edge and the speed and a lot of the kind of bragging of rap and
the kind of thug aspects of it. That kind of goes against who you are as a
coach and what you want from your players as a coach.

Mr. JACKSON: Well, the part that I like about coaching is my ability to
influence. I have been able to kind of take them through, you know, like,
violence. Is gun violence appropriate, you know, and the idea of possessing
and owning guns and making them think those thoughts. And I like the fact
that on Martin Luther King Day, we have a game on that day, and I can always
talk about, you know, Martin Luther King and peaceful resistance, you know,
and the ability for people to make things happen without having to take armed
stands, you know, and having to defend oneself through rational, reasonable
approaches.

GROSS: My guest is Phil Jackson, coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. He also
has a new book called "More Than a Game." He's in Philadelphia, where the
Lakers are playing against the 76ers in the NBA finals. We'll talk more after
a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Coach Phil Jackson is my guest. And, by the way, he has a new book,
and it's called "More Than a Game."

Now you're on camera a lot during the games.

Mr. JACKSON: Yes.

GROSS: Are you conscious of that, and are you trying to maintain a public
face knowing that at any minute there might be a cutaway to you?

Mr. JACKSON: Well, I think we've all had our embarrassing moments on film
that--coaches or players, that you're, you know, either caught in a position
where you're yelling or something's happened to you or, you know, you might
even be wiping your nose or whatever. But every action that's a reaction, the
camera comes back to you. And I've gotten used to that over the years, and I
try to remain really equal about my emotions at that time and not to vent or
not to do anything.

But I learned that lesson, not so much from the camera, but from, you know,
having a player like Dennis Rodman on the team, who fed directly almost off
the emotional state of the coach. And I realized that the more animated I
got, the more animated he felt he had to be, and it would create this chain
reaction. And I felt that the calmer and the easier I was on the whole
attitude of the game, the better he felt about the game, and the team
responded likewise. And so I've tried to maintain that since that time.

GROSS: Yeah, like, one sports columnist said something like, `Phil Jackson
uncrossed his leg,' you know, like, `Wow! What emotion he showed.'

Mr. JACKSON: Yeah. People always say, `You're not doing much coaching over
there.'

GROSS: I want to quote one more thing from your book "More Than a Game." You
say, "In 1998, after 44 years of being continuously involved with basketball,
I cashed in my chips and, quote, `retired' after winning my sixth championship
with the Bulls. In the middle of the journey that is my life, I had lost my
way." What did you mean by that, by having lost your way before getting back
to basketball?

Mr. JACKSON: Well, really the career in basketball became, you know, so
dominant in my life that I felt like I had lost my kids, my family. You know,
they were all gone off to college, you know, or in the process. It was almost
impossible for me. I had four in college at the same time, twins, as
freshmen. And it was almost impossible to stay in touch with them at some
level with the amount of traveling and everything. And it felt like, you
know, somehow or other I kind of lost the whole process of this family that I
was very, very connected to for many years. And as they'd grown up, become
less and less connected, there's--more and more basketball pressures kept
coming in, particularly when, you know, season's over two months ago basically
in the NBA, a normal NBA season, 82 games; you work five and a half months and
you have that time with your family. When you're in the end result so many
times, like I've been over the last 10 years, it really separates you from
your family. And now you've got July and August before school starts again,
basically, to reconnect.

And, you know, I went through a period of separation with my wife and, you
know, been separated since I've gone to LA, and she's remained in New York, as
we've found, you know, that there's a different way that we're going to
travel, I suppose, the rest of this life. And for a period of time, it was
very devastating for me because I'd felt like I'd lost my family. But I found
that I hadn't lost my family at all; we'd just grown to different positions.
And, you know, kids are here with me in Philadelphia, and it's great. I have
five kids and--lots of kids, and they love to come to the finals. It's become
like a family ritual, and it's amazing that they can be here.

GROSS: Just one last question. What are you doing, and what are you advising
your players to do until the next game to kind of keep focused, not party or
drink too much, just, you know, 'cause there's--between Sunday and Wednesday,
you guys have got a few days there.

Mr. JACKSON: Yes. It's all recuperation. One of things that I'll mention
just in this last question is that, you know, I kind of--you know, we have
this Wednesday-Friday home, and then we go on the road Sunday, Wednesday,
Friday.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. JACKSON: In the period of time between those games, Friday in LA and
Sunday in Philadelphia, we have a day of travel. Philadelphia chose to travel
after the ball game and flew all night, and I've kind of learned over the
course of time, that you can miss a whole day and travel on that day and, you
know, recuperate, hopefully, and have a good game, because it's all--your
nervous system has to recover from that intense noise and energy and adrenalin
flow. And that's what I tell the guys: Get plenty of rest, food and fluids.
You know, that's one of the most important things, and then get a really good
night's sleep on Tuesday night, and then you'll be ready to go; you'll be
regenerated by Wednesday. And I think we'll see a different Philadelphia team
on Wednesday, one that's much more rejuvenated than we had and much more
active than was last night.

GROSS: Phil Jackson, thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. JACKSON: Yeah, Terry, it's always a pleasure. I love your show.

GROSS: Phil Jackson, coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, recorded yesterday at
the FRESH AIR studio in Philadelphia. The Lakers are in Philadelphia playing
against the 76ers in the NBA finals. The Lakers are ahead 2-to-1. Game four
is tomorrow night. Jackson also has a new book called "More Than a Game."

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.