Jackson in his own words

Phil Jackson's opening remarks after the Lakers' 93-81 victory tonight over the visiting Houston Rockets: "That was what we'd call a mud wrestling contest out there for a while. We broke it open in the third quarter, but didn't break it open. We got a little lead, a 10-point lead and we were able to sustain that actually even though it was brought back down to one point. I thought for a return game after a road trip it was OK. We shot the ball poorly tonight. We'll have to do a better job."

Jackson on the Lakers (60-16) moving within one game of Cleveland (61-15) for the league's best record: "We have to make an attempt for it. I wouldn't feel good about it and neither would the players if we didn't. We really don't have to threaten our well being by doing it, I don't think. We have some opponents I consider dangerous. Tonight when I went in to talk to them, I said, 'Dallas got beat by Memphis, Utah got beat on their home court by Minnesota, New Orleans got beat by Golden State. We have the Los Angeles Clippers and the Sacramento Kings coming up as our next two games. So, don't take them lightly. Be prepared.'"

Jackson on playing against teams bent on beating up on them: "We're better. We still want to look back at the referees and I don't want them to do that. I don't want to have guys complaining. If there's going to be that kind of game and the referees are going to call it that way, then you're going to have to get in the trenches and play that type of game and not look back."

Jackson on adjusting his rotation: "I'm going to continue to experiment with this a little bit. I liked the game Jordan (Farmar) played in Milwaukee. He didn't shoot the ball well, but I liked the game he played in Milwaukee. So he had the first option to go off the bench tonight. I thought his effort was good tonight. He tried, but I thought some of the things he did were not what I wanted to see. It has to be done better. Sasha (Vujacic) is on a shorter leash because he's sitting behind Kobe (Bryant) and Kobe is necessary to come back and help us. I told Luke (Walton) he hasn't had a good home game. He's played well on the road, but he hasn't played well on our home court for a while and I wanted him to get it back on our home court and give us that sustained effort that he can do."

Jackson on an article in The New York Times Magazine recently about Shane Battier's fine defensive play against Bryant over the years: "I gave that article to Kobe because I thought it was important for him not so much about Shane ... but about his penchant for taking on guys and at times making it mano a mano at times. It takes us out of our game and he was particularly good in the last game against Houston (37 points, including 18 in the fourth quarter). Now, this game, they didn't put (Ron) Artest on him. It was Shane who guarded him. He does a good job. Kobe measured it a lot this game and I thought did a great job of just playing the game that had to be played and playing within himself."