Image by Getty Images via @daylifeDENVER -- Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson doesn't think his team will win 70 games this season.
But he thinks the Miami Heat have a chance in the near future.
"It's not going to happen [for us]," Jackson said about the 70-win talk surrounding his team after the Lakers' shootaround Thursday morning in preparation for their game against the Denver Nuggets. "The schedule's too tough. The travel is extenuating in the Western Conference, there's very difficult time zone changes that you go through and all the stuff that happens. And that's disregarding the idea that you can play with all your players for the rest of the season.
"Everything has to just break perfect for that to happen, plus the team has to be very, very resilient and very, very capable of filling in for one another at multiple positions."
Jackson described all of the factors his 72-10 Chicago Bulls team had in its favor during the 1995-96 season -- playing in the Central time zone gave them an advantage when the bulk of their games were played in the Eastern time zone because they would gain an hour; on several occasions the opponents' best player happened to be injured when they played; there were less back-to-backs built into the schedule because TNT had yet to sign a Thursday night exclusivity deal with the league; and having Hall of Famers Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen certainly helped.
"We have a team that's an older team and we probably don't have to push for [72-10]," Jackson said. "That's not what's important about our season. Our season is to maintain a balance and hopefully have distance [between us and the rest of the field] and can finish in a position where it would be the best advantage for us in the playoffs.
"It's a lot of fun to win a lot of games, but ultimately, as Ronny Harper made a T-shirt up, '72-10 don't mean a thing if you don't win the ring.' And so, that's what it's all about."
