Phil Jackson: Lakers Lacked Chemistry, Clutch Play


Phil Jackson publicly looked back at his old team for the first time since he walked away from the NBA, during a radio interview yesterday, and said the Los Angeles Lakers failed in two critical department last season. From ESPN: “There is nothing that could have gone worse for a basketball team than the way we finished our season last year,’ Jackson said . ‘Struggling with New Orleans … and going into the next round [against Dallas] we needed everyone to start playing well and we just couldn’t find that little magical thing that you always hope you have as a coach, the chemistry that makes a team work well.’ Dallas swept the Lakers in the Western Conference semifinals, and Jackson saw some of it coming. To lose an 18-point lead in the first game [against the Mavericks], not being able to outscore your opponent on your home court in the fourth quarter,’ he said, ‘to give them life in the very first game of the Dallas series was foreboding what was going to happen to us. We didn’t have the ability to play in the clutch like we had in the previous years.'”