Rick Carlisle Ok Quotations

There's no doubt right now that (Jackson) is our main guy. He's going to make some things happen for us. He's going to get some good looks at the basket.

We can't afford not to have him for 35-40 minutes in a playoff game. I'm not going to criticize the officials because they're working hard, but it is something that needs to be looked at.

Things weren't looking great after the first quarter. But our guys hung in there and got two sub-20-point quarters, and that's tough against a team like Sacramento.

Things weren't looking great after the first quarter.

They didn't do a great job with the coverage, but, hey, the way Tinsley played tonight, he put the defense in a tough situation. That was a huge play because it was so hard for Jermaine to get open looks around the basket. It gave our team some energy at the defensive end.

He hurt it at the end when he got that put-back, so we'll hold our breath and keep our fingers crossed that he'll be OK (on Thursday) and the next day. He's going to be sore, we know that, but if anybody will play hurt, he's certainly a guy who's done it time after time.

I thought we got some pretty good looks at the end. It's disappointing to work that hard to get the lead and lose it. It's tough.

Nine 3s is going to make it hard to beat you. If you go anywhere around making 10 3s, you're looking at a great chance to win.

He's at the point now where rookies are still rookies, but they have a veteran sort of confidence about them, and he should. The other thing he has learned this year is that when he plays well, it's going to be tougher to keep playing well because teams are going to keep getting ready for you.

We knew he could get unbelievably hot. In the fourth, it started with that three from the corner. Then he shook loose a couple of times on other plays. Until then, we had them under control.

We're going up against a guy who's playing a superhuman brand of basketball. He's looked invincible.

We'll see where we go from there after he gets re-evaluated. More than likely it looks like he'll be out unless we hear otherwise.

It's just one of those plays great players make. When he took it, I just turned my head.

We knew we were going to switch (plays) if they called a timeout. They took a 20(-second timeout) once they saw our formation.

We hung in, competed, and had chances. We created a lot of good looks for ourselves, but weren't able to make some of the easiest shots we had on the whole trip.

They took the game to us. It just looked like they were everywhere and our feet were stuck in the mud.

I wasn't convinced that there was any way Steve Jackson could play tonight after the fall he took on Wednesday. I went and saw him at the hospital after the game and he was in a lot of pain.

I would believe the concerns for a loved one in the stands and the fact he just went up to see if everything was OK would be a mitigating circumstance. It would be a scary situation if you had concerns for a wife or child in the stands. I can understand why he went up there.

I don't know the exact description of it, but it doesn't need surgery and there's a chance if it feels better and feels OK next week, he could play with a protective splint.

We're down a lot of players and it looks like we may be down another. We're in a situation where we have zero margin for error.

Three days ago it looked like it might be a possibility. He is doing better. It's just not the right time to push it. Also, if we would have did it, he would have been playing a game without almost any practice time leading up to it, which would have been hard. It makes it tough because he does a good job on (Shaquille O'Neal).

It looked like it was pretty clean, but we could have gotten a better look, which I had hoped.

It looked like he labored a bit. I think it's a tough situation to not be in for a while and now be in the middle of a hotly-contested playoff series.

I'm looking forward to seeing him. He's one of my favorite players I've ever worked with. I'm not looking forward to seeing him in an opponent's uniform.

It doesn't need surgery and there's a chance if it feels better and feels OK next week, he could play with a protective splint.

A.J. is playing with great awareness and great savvy. He looks like a guy that understands the pulse of the team he's running. The majority of the game, he's making our calls and directing us into things. He's a guy that really knows this team, as well as any player that I've had the opportunity to work with as a coach.

A.J. is playing with great awareness and great savvy. He just looks like a guy who understands the pulse of the team he runs. He knows his team as well as any player I've had an opportunity to coach.