Thats what happens when your the coach of players like Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. Your going to overlook Kobe's outstanding season and give the credit to Jackson? 81 point game... hello? This guy is on fire.
The undercurrent of everything you've posted in here is to create a comparison of Van Gundy to Jackson. All Jackson has done is get his team to play good perimeter defense vs PHX especially against Nash...this is not rocket science...it ought to be an obvious to most students of the game. If you want to turn it into a comparison, how about if Phil gets a team into the playoffs when he's had as many lost player minutes due to injury as VG had this season. Then you'd have a basis for comparison. To repeat my original point which you want to obscure with some Kwame nonsense...the Suns are over-rated and have a system built upon principles that don't work well in the playoffs. This has more to do with the Suns and less to do with Jackson.
Undercurrent, LOL. You sure have a way to turn and twist to make your points. By "everything you've posted here" do you mean my "You have to applaud the job he's done on Kwame Brown. Imagine Kwame playing for JVG?" What to obscure? Yes, I believe Phil did a better job with Kwame than JVG would have done. I fully expect KB gets little playing time, and probably gone...for nothing if he's under JVG. It's my opinion, it's less nonsense or irrelevent than whatever the quote you posted from that paper. Oh, the Suns are so overrated there is no basis for us to recognize the coaching job PJ has done. Oh playing good paremeter defense, exploit the mismatches is not Rocket Science - pun intended - that Rockets can ever done well against the Suns. And yes, get these Lakers to play together, sharing the ball isn't to the credit of PJ either. Phil may or may not gets a team into the playoffs had he had the injury as VG's team this season. Why stop there as threshhold for comparison? Even if he does, the players, the teams are always different. It still wouldn't prove anything for you. So you go ahead, hold whatever opinion you do. Phil is a good coach in my book, and PJ > JVG.
I agree. He also got into Kobe's head at right time, or maybe that over-shooting Kobe on the end of regular season was a decoy
Seriously, which part of the coaching job is rocket science? IMO, none - and I know some rocket sceince. Yet, some coach is a good coach, some a bad coach, some other is a great coach.
This is the same Phoenix team that was #2 in Western Conference despite all their flaws. This is the same D'Antonio offensive game plan that took them to Conference Finals last year. You are trying to take credit away from PJ and how he has prepared this team against the Suns. PJ is an excellent motivator, comes up with the right game plan,and seems to push the right buttons for each players individually. And do not even try to bring up JVG into the equation. If you say that its simple math that Suns perimeter game needs to be stopped, what does it say about Mr.Gundy who continually got burned by the Suns offense this season? Perhaps you should relay the plan to Gundy or to sevral other teams for that matter. May I remind you that, the year MJ went away, PJ took a Scotty Quitten led team to limit agianst the Knicks,which eventually lost to rockets in game7 in NBA finals? PJ is exactly the kind of coach that Yao/Tmac needed. Not because of just the basketball part, but the mental aspect of the game. PJ would have taken them to the next level. No matter how you cut it, slice it, dice it.... PJ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> JVG.
When we had a decent roster, the JVG-coached Rockets won TWICE in Phoenix last year, when their team was BETTER than this year's version. In one of those games, we were down 14 points in the 3rd quarter and won the game by 20! Seems like everyone has forgotton that. This year, our pathetic roster was tailor made to get roasted by the Suns, who prey on non-athletic teams with weak reserve players. JVG has proven he can win here when given a good roster. Our record with both Tracy and Yao in the lineup is very good. That said, nobody can seriously argue that JVG is a better coach than PJ. We'll never know how many games PJ would have won this year as the Rockets coach. As Lakers coach, PJ has finally won out over Kobe in the power struggle. Kobe knows PJ must be in control in order for the team to maximize it's success. That's a testament both to PJ's determination and his powers of persuasion over Kobe. Lakers fans (UGGH) must be feeling pretty good right now. I doubt it, but they could find themselves in the WCFs.
Phil Jackson is the King of all Kings when it comes to coaching, that fact is now impossible to avoid. Larry Brown had a more talented roster in NYK and he f***ed up, got stressed and hospitalized because he couldn't deal with it, and quit on his team as much as his team quit on him. Phil Jackson is miles better than any coach in the league, period, whether it's JVG or someone else. You already mentioned the Bulls team with Pippen at the helm, and now he's poised to make a similar improbable run with the Lakers with Kobe at the helm. How can anyone continue to deny this man's uniqueness? He's unlike any other, don't compare him to Larry or JVG or Karl or even Riley, he's in a class by himself.
Repeat: Anyone who thinks that JVG is close to PJ in coaching knows nothing about basketball and has an IQ much worse than GWB even the latter has nothing to begin with. Case closed.
I dont know anything about the bed part but I will take your word for it, since you seem to be speaking from experience. I can testify to the coaching part though.
Actually Dallas was #2 in the West. The 'game plan' looks a little different with Stoudemire and Joe Johnson on the floor also. Let's not forget that this team has Raja Bell, James Jones, and Boris Diaw starting, with Tim Thomas getting heavy minutes. This Phoenix team is NOTHING like last year's. Phil seems to have lucked out once again. This guy's luck is amazing. If he wins this series, he gets the Clippers, where he'll in effect be the home team in every single game. Kwame Brown's numbers aren't any better across the board than they were before he came to LA.
I’ve been a Phil doubter, but it’s hard to argue what he’s done with this Lakers team, not only in the playoffs, but the last couple of months of the season they were playing great ball, beating teams like San Antonio and Detroit. It would be one thing if Kobe were just putting on a one man show and carrying the Lakers to victory every game. Then you could say Phil’s not doing that great a coaching job, he’s just letting his superstar do everything like always. But Phil is getting players like Lamar Odom/Kwame Brown (players who have been know to be lazy and heartless) and Luke Walton/Smush Parker/Vujacic (very inexperienced youngsters) to all step up their game. Their confidence level is at an all time high and they're peaking at the exact right time. I would say this is probably his best coaching job.
PJ has done a good job this year, no doubt, but I think his best years were with the Bulls. I know it's a distant memory and very few people here followed the Bulls closely, but some of those teams were absolutely incredible, and it wasn't all MJ. The machine-like performances they got game to game from ALL of their rotation players was amazing. And most people don't realize the defense they played was stifling. This is why they won 6 championships and 72 games one year. The idea that those teams were all about MJ and PJ didn't do much is just plain wrong. This year, Kwame was lost until about 15 games ago while PJ was playing his mind games. LO has been up and down all year. The only time the Lakers hit their stride was when Kobe went ballistic for a few games in a row. If you want to judge their season by the playoff success against the Suns (assuming they win), fine. But over the course of the year it's been a very hard slog. That said, playoff success can erase bad regular season memories in a hurry. It was a pretty good season by PJ, but not great IMO. The playoff success against a #2 seed is another story.
I'm glad Kobe didn't win MVP because it makes him look THAT much better than Nash and the Suns right now. Kind of like Dream schooling Mrs. Robinson and Jordan schooling Karla Malone.
