Pregame with Phil

The Lakers' game Saturday night against Denver was the first between the teams since the Lakers cut guard Coby Karl, the son of Nuggets coach George Karl. Lakers coach Phil Jackson said he had not spoken to either Karl directly, but had e-mailed Coby's mother.
"We talked about Coby's disappointment, but how he's going to go on and have a good career, hopefully," Jackson said.

Moments earlier, Jackson gave a Denver reporter a windy answer about the reason behind shaving his beard going into the season. When someone wondered whether he had done it simply because San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich had grown a beard, Jackson said: "I thought that was just a Halloween thing."

Asked about Andrew Bynum's four-season contract extension, which is worth roughly $58 million, Jackson thought back to his days as a 21-year-old at North Dakota.
"What was I making at that age?" he said, repeating the question. "I was tying flies. I had a stamp collection. I was still in college. I was doing essays and writing term papers. My parents were missionaries, so there were a lot of people sending us letters from overseas. There were a lot of stamps."