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Lord of the rings Lakers' coach knows a thing or two about NBA titles
Posted: Tuesday June 20, 2000 07:35 AM
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- He knew the drill. Knew just where to stand, off to the side, so that the boss and the kids got to hold the trophy first. You don't come to a new town with six championship rings, like Phil Jackson did, without knowing a thing or two about celebrations. And so Jackson hung at the edge of the frame for as long as he could Monday night, savoring his seventh trophy while they clamored to touch their first, letting the same bunch of Lakers he spent a year controlling run wild. "What a way," Jackson said, "to start the millennium." It was easy to look at the snapshot of Kobe Bryant jumping into Shaquille O'Neal's arms the second the 116-111 decision over Indiana was complete, and wonder why it took a new coach to end the Lakers' title drought at a dozen years. Jackson never wondered. When he decided to come back to basketball after a year off, he looked at those two and knew he already owned the biggest piece of any championship puzzle. Jackson learned to respect talent by respecting the best -- Michael Jordan. That was what enabled him to patch up the rift between Bryant and O'Neal. Because he could watch both of them play their best and honestly say he'd seen better. And because he had the rings to prove it. And so it wasn't a coincidence that Jackson walked in the door and stories of the Shaq-Kobe feuds dried up. "He found out exactly how to talk to each of them, and he let them go out and work on one another," said John Salley, another former member of the Chicago Bulls crew that Jackson brought out West. "And when he did that, these guys went out and realized what they had to with one another. "They realized they weren't at odds. Just on a losing team and in a losing situation." The Lakers weren't that bad, though in retrospect it might have seemed that way. For the last half of the decade, under Del Harris, they were a great regular-season team that faded in the playoffs. Jackson is a master at building a team's confidence, at all those little ploys and gimmicks that make it look as if he is sharing power and responsibility. That's because it lets streak players like Bryant play unafraid and role players like Robert Horry step up at the biggest moments. It wasn't just O'Neal's 41 points or Bryant's 26 that finally persuaded the Pacers to let go of their own championship aspirations. It was the 3-pointer that Derek Fisher dropped to open the fourth quarter, the 3-pointer by Horry sandwiched between baskets by O'Neal, and the 3-pointer by Rick Fox that gave Los Angeles its first breathing room and a 94-90 lead. What Jackson brought to the Lakers was a calm facade while all those points were dropping from those unlikely places. He'd seen that before, too, from guys named John Paxson, Steve Kerr and Jud Buechler, Bulls reserves who'd make contributions when the front-line talent needed a break or searched for a shooting touch that suddenly disappeared. Jackson learned to rely on them in tough stretches, laid down the law in some instances, and it made everybody understand how much they would have to rely on one another before any championship celebrations could be held. "That's what I like about Phil," O'Neal said, "not what he did with Michael and Scottie, but how he got the other guys to play." And isn't that just like Phil? The stars like the way he gets the role players motivated and vice versa. And both groups praise Jackson for his light touch, when in reality, he does more coaching than he ever gets credit for -- and loves it that way. Before Game 6, someone informed Jackson that no team in NBA history had blown six chances to clinch playoff series, as this Laker team had, and he trotted out his best, Zen-quality smirk and said, "That's great." And then he came back a moment later with a rambling answer about momentum being a mistress and home court being the place where it always comes back to settle. And whether he believed it or not, Jackson looked convinced enough down the stretch to look at his ballplayers and convince them it was true.
"You look at Phil and if he's not worried," O'Neal said, "you
think, why should you worry?"
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