The Lakers practiced for about two hours on Saturday morning, sandwiched in between Friday evening’s win and Sunday night’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Afterwards, Phil Jackson shared a few thoughts:
On Kevin McHale taking the coaching reigns in Minnesota: “He’s done it before, and we know that he’s been there with the coaches watching (the team) for 15 years - it’s been a long time. It’s a pressurized situation - Colangelo did it back in the day and there have been a lot of guys that have done it, fill the gap, so to speak - but I’m sure he’s capable of handling it.”
Jackson went on to talk about the many challenges a coach faces with having as many young players as Minnesota does, particularly in keeping the players focused and paying attention to details. He added that McHale’s message might be listened to more intently since the players know he’s coming from the operations side of the team.
A reporter asked Jackson if he remembers a time that so many head coaches had been fired in a season, after Maurice Cheeks was fired by the 76ers, and Jackson couldn’t. Neither could we. “It’s all about attentiveness and how you get your team to approach detail and bring out the best in the personnel. Maurice was able to do that last year, even though they came out slow, (because) they finished strong.”
On the Christmas day game vs. Boston: “It’s a gimmicky game. We get back at 2 or 3:00 in the morning (on the 24th) and to have practice that day is almost unfair after four games in five days. Then we play an afternoon game which prohibits almost a shootaround, so preparing for the game is (going to be) difficult for us. Obviously we have something to draw from last June, but that’s a long ways away.”
Jackson said he told his team that the Lakers weren’t ready to play against the Celtics team they saw on ESPN last night, particularly because of the defensive intensity.
On Al Jefferson of the Wolves: “He carries a lot of the scoring for them and gets a lot of touches. He has a reel knack in there, and it’s going to be a challenge. We’ve talked about who is the best to defend him, and it’s probably better to have (Andrew Bynum) on (Craig) Smith and Pau (Gasol) on Jefferson, but we’ll probably wait and see how that goes. He’s a guy that doesn’t want to readily give it up because he believes in his own scoring.”
FROM LAKERS.com
