Coach’s ill-Timed Put Down

NBA coach has bad timing on putdown: A miked Phil Jackson explains to his Lakers team why Boston will fold in a big playoff game.
Phil Jackson might want to update his timeout speech: Usually when coaches get wired for sound, all you hear is a lot of clapping, lots of clichés and the phrase "let's go" repeated several times in rapid-fire succession. I'm not saying they're not revealing, but you usually get more out of a Gregg Popovich sideline interview than a typical mic'd-up segment. But sometimes, if you're lucky, you get a coach saying some really insightful things. And if you're REALLY lucky you get Lakers coach Phil Jackson talking smack about the Celtics, which is exactly what happened during the fourth quarter of Sunday night's Game 5. ice one, Phil. Good use of statistics to really drive home a point that Pau Gasol(notes) very clearly agrees with. Tough break about that not working out for you in the end, what with the Celtics making insane plays that are not statistically very probable. Thems the breaks. Funnily enough, the Celtics totally agreed with everything Jackson was saying, except for probably the "showing us that now" part. From WEEI: hen asked about the comment, Celtics coach Doc Rivers said, "He's right. As a coach you can tell your team whatever you can to get him going. We didn't hear it and it didn't affect us." Celtics forward Paul Pierce(notes) relayed a similar reaction as his coach when asked about Jackson's comment. "You know, he's right," Pierce said. "What you just said, that's been the truth for us throughout the regular season. I haven't really seen much of that in the playoffs, but coaches say things to try to motivate their team. He's supposed to give them confidence. He's supposed to say something like that. I probably would say the same thing if I was a coach in that situation. It doesn't bother me at all." 'd hope proving Phil wrong in the most important game in the season thus far doesn't bother Paul Pierce. If it did we'd have to start calling him Kevin Garnett(notes) and joke about him yelling in everyone's face. Stats aren't everything, you guys. Maybe the Celtics have blown the most fourth-quarter leads this year, but Sunday night, that didn't mean anything. Kind of like how Phil's 47-0 streak of winning series after winning Game 1 won't mean anything if the Lakers can't figure out how to play defense. I wonder if Doc Rivers will mention that at all if the Celtics win, because Jackson totally would if the roles were reversed.