Phil Jackson Quotations

Pau is one of the best big men in the game. I mean, Pau Gasol is going to be in the Hall of Fame.

Basketball is a simple game. Your goal is penetration, get the ball close to the basket, and there are three ways to do that. Pass, dribble and offensive rebound.

Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart.

Approach the game with no preset agendas and you'll probably come away surprised at your overall efforts.

The NBA has made a real issue about really making these superstars the premium that everybody wants to go to. That's their calling card and their marketing tool. But the coaches at the other end of the sphere are trying to make everybody on the team, even nine, 10, 11, 12, just as important, and have a real role that's meaningful.

My father was a man who didn't consider himself learned. He was a man who liked to be a farmer. He enjoyed his dairy farm and felt the calling. So there was a dedication. I was dedicated as a child to the service of God, and so there was this continual centering of a greater purpose than your own.

My philosophy is that you don't motivate players with speeches; you have motivated players that you draft. That's where they come in, and those are the guys that are competitive. You can not teach competitiveness.

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

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

The winter's a little bit daunting in Montana.

As much as we pump iron and we run to build our strength up, we need to build our mental strength up... so we can focus... so we can be in concert with one another.

I played hockey in North Dakota growing up and watch a lot of that.

There's a lot of chatter in basketball and, rightfully, you want players to be talking to each other... But sometimes in practice, it gets too verbose... so I tried to take things out of the ordinary and make them special so they'd understand the difference.

I replaced three joints in my hips and one in my knee. I'm hoping that other knee doesn't have to be done. It's one of the toughest things to overcome.

You have to be able to psychologically help your players, support-wise, be in touch with them, so I think managing people is very important.

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

For us tall people, the whole key is that your hips and your knees should form a right angle when you sit down. That's where backs and hips get to be problems for big guys.

I think the most important thing about coaching is that you have to have a sense of confidence about what you're doing. You have to be a salesman and you have to get your players, particularly your leaders, to believe in what you're trying to accomplish on the basketball floor.

My father was the superintendent of the churches in the state of Montana. He was content in his beliefs. He befit the term 'true Christian.' He would turn the other cheek. He was truly a man of peace.

I think there's something about wanting to stand in the spotlight. I think the ball is a spotlight, for example, and I think they want to stand in that. I a lot of times see - LeBron is a guy that vacillates between wanting to do that and then wanting to get somebody else involved.

I'm not going to coach again. I've done my coaching, and I think I can put that aside.

When I was young, I was dedicated to become a minister - my brothers and I were formally brought in front of the congregation in a dedication ceremony, where we were dedicated to the future service of God.

My parents were, had a marriage of passion, and the passion was about their religious beliefs. They were both immigrant families that - well, my father's family came as Puritans to Massachusetts.

I think the most rewarding part of the job, and I think most coaches would say it, is practice. If you have it, a very good practice in which you have 12 guys participate, and they can really get something out of it, lose themselves in practice.

My mother's families were Mennonites or Anabaptists that came to Minnesota from Russia. They were actually moving around Europe doing diking and lowland reclamation work, and they moved into Minnesota.

I'm a sports-watcher. I played football and baseball, coached baseball. So I watch those things.

When you start out a ball game and the first thing they do is call an offensive foul on him for a nonexistent foul, you know the kid doesn't have a chance out there playing. The referees just give him nothing. It's embarrassing.

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 found out that there is no substitute for human contact.

We're exploring life without Shaq, ... and enjoying it, too.

We're not amazed, to say the least. We are enthralled by it, and it's a beautiful thing to see, but it's something that we've grown accustomed to over the years.

We're a ways away from being that next level of NBA team.

We let the momentum slide in the fourth quarter.

Wow, how can you lose a ball game like that. I just don't understand sometimes the capabilities of this team to disappoint.

We've got a week that's real busy ahead of us. We've got to stay the course, and that's important for us right now.

We want him out there. We want their full team out there to play, so you earn what you win.

Ludicrous is probably the best word I could think of.

Looks like that's the character of what we have right now.

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

Milwaukee came back in the second quarter and made a game of it.

Obviously when the threes aren't going it's time to stop shooting them. We kept going to it and got desperate at the end trying to hit home runs. We can't do that.

Obviously I think Chauncey Billups is really the guy that controls the throttle over there. He is an important part of their success.

Obviously the game was determined by Howard leaving so early. That took a lot of energy away from them and we played well as a group.

No. He's not. He doesn't have the base.

Poor decisions and free throw shooting haunted us. I was disappointed in our ball control.

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.

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 didn't get any satisfaction from their reasoning.

I don't feel like we missed an opportunity. We'll have better opportunities as we go along. We're figuring out how to play against them.

I have been involved in a lot of wild ones. That one was right up there.

I have my hopes as to how we can grow as a basketball club,

I felt like they were frustrated and they have a reason to be frustrated. Things didn't happen for them and it's a frustrating thing for these young kids.

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

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

I feel like we will have better opportunities as we go along.

I expect a cigar, ... Not lit, hopefully.

He's had a great year this year. I wanted him to have an opportunity to be on the playoff roster and be successful.

He was an excellent football coach. He had a lot of success here. He was a real gentleman. I knew him pretty well. He was one of the finest men I ever knew.

He was unusual in the fact that he was also an excellent (math) teacher. In those days, most coaches taught P.E.

He had a so-so game. He played adequately.... Everybody's a work in progress right now.

He is coming up with some key plays for us. And at the offensive end, he is doing things that help him finish at the basket. When a player plays extended minutes, you fall into that rhythm. Kwame has set himself up to have this sort of success.

He flew coach ? that was the only problem.

He looks like he's injured to me. Except for that dunk, he didn't seem to play with as much vim and vigor.

He'll be playing out on the perimeter a lot, ... How much, I don't know. He might start there the first and third quarters and play a power position in the second and fourth quarters.

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

When he's playing well, we really have a special team. When he's not playing well, we really miss him.

We stumbled and fumbled around out there for three quarters.

He said he wasn't ready to come out. But then he sat down for a while, came back, and made a shot like that. We wanted him to rest his legs. Your legs can suffer when you take as many shots as he does.

He's been under five systems in as many years, ... I expect it's going to take some time.

He's at the end of the bench. Right now, we have to win games. That's our No. 1 priority.

He's hired former NBA referees to monitor the game tapes. He sends out a weekly report on the referees. There's some things that Mark has done to turn it a little bit in his favor. That's good.

He's having the best season of anybody in the NBA. There are a couple guys who are having really good years, but there's not anybody who's having the kind of year he's having.

He's had to make some adjustments. I really feel like the adjustments have been made,

We looked like we were lethargic out there. We shot 50 percent in the first half, and had 16 turnovers to go with that, which is not acceptable. The second half was a disappointment not only with the choice of shots, but with the execution. Golden State had something to do with that.

He was a great student and a really fine leader on the basketball court. He directed a lot of what happened, he was very much one of the reasons why we were successful over those six championships.

He could have been the heir apparent to (Michael Jordan) and maybe won as many championships. He may still win a championship or two, but the boyish hero image has been replaced by that of a callous gun for hire.

He just has to finish, ... He's doing everything right but the final act and that's finding some strength and finishing and finding a good base and putting it through the hoop. I just told him, 'You're going to have to dunk the ball.'

He is still a long ways from being smooth in what we anticipate will be a system that he'll take to and enjoy, ... It's going to take him a while, as it will everybody, especially a guy who's a lead guard in a situation like that. It takes some time.

He (Lakers owner Jerry Buss) knew what he was trying to get accomplished, but still in all, it never quite seems to match up.

Kind of a blowout in that third quarter when they got a run on us, and we never recovered from that.

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.

I wouldn't ask him to go on the trip. We want him to stay behind, work out and get an opportunity to condition himself. It makes no sense for him to go along on the trip and stay in the hotel while we play.

Kareem met these guys at the door and he said, 'That effort wins on Wednesday (in Game 2).' He was very supportive. I think they heard that -- that if they give that kind of effort again, they can win.

It came to a point where there was that curiosity factor: Was he going to hit 80? I'm sure it went through his head.

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 think the only thing it did was take our mind off the game.

It is good to be back in the playoffs again. That's an important step for this club because of the number of young players we have that haven't been in the playoffs.

I was disappointed with our fourth-quarter beginning. We put ourselves in good position, then didn't score for three minutes. We gave it away.

I was disappointed in our fourth quarter beginning. We put ourselves in a good position, and didn't score for the first three minutes of the fourth quarter. We gave it away in the fourth, and went from one to eleven.

I thought we played in spurts tonight. We came out with a little more energy in the third quarter, compared to our last two games, which helped a lot.

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 thought we had a good defensive first half. We capitalized off the steals and turnovers. I don't think we finished well, but the win tonight was good for our confidence.

I think that contributed to it somewhat. So we live with that decision.

I think we are playing relatively good basketball. Tonight we were quick to the ball and did a good job on defense.

I think that Shaq measures himself against a season. I've always given him credit for that. He knows what the end goal is, and he's got a tremendous amount of pride. He'll be there when the playoffs are going, and he's going to be probably at his peak at that time.

I think some of our guys hit a little bit of a wall here. We talked a lot about that ... This is a heavy time to play basketball. You've really got to take care of yourself. I had a couple of guys fighting through things out there, under-the-weather type of things. They just couldn't get themselves going.

I think that it can provide a space away from the other things that I'm sure have encroached upon his life and really give him a chance to do what he does best, ... His genius is basketball, and to do that he's got to play it at the highest level.

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.