Jackson looking to help Bryant

By Gary Dzen

June 15, 2010

1 minute to read

Lakers coach Phil Jackson loves having an assassin like Kobe Bryant on his team. But Jackson would rather Bryant took over in the fourth quarter of a close game as opposed to trying to win the game by himself in the first half.

“We’re a team that generates a lot off of him,” said Jackson. “And I thought we did too much the first half [of Game 4]. We looked for him too often, he didn’t get going, and there was a need for the team to give him the basketball. We talked about that in our pregame today. Once he’s hot, he’s as hot as any player could be in the NBA, so you want to keep the ball on him. There’s no doubt with that. But there’s too much individual action. There’s got to be more team play on the offensive end.”

It’s not all on Bryant. Kobe had a spectacular run of 19 straight points in the third quarter of Game 5, a run that possibly no other play in the game would be able to match if asked to do so. But the Lakers can’t keep asking Bryant to do so much.

“You know, I think that the bench performance has to prove itself,” said Jackson. “It’s got to go out there. But in the same breath, benches play better on our home court than they do on the road. It’s like, OK, they certainly have to have a chance to play, and if they’re playing well, they’ll stay.”

On the Lakers’ No. 2 option, Pau Gasol, Jackson said, “You know, so things didn’t happen for him [Sunday]. They’ll be better — it’ll be better off tonight.”

Jackson was confident in his team’s body language and mood for Game 6, saying the only time he thought the team lacked confidence was after the Lakers lost Game 2.

“I have a good feeling like they’re going to come out and play,” said Jackson. “They’re anticipating the energy that they have to have in this kind of a game. They know that they have to carry that energy.”