More than a GameΒ covers the yearsΒ that followΒ the oneΒ featured in the ESPN documentary series "The Last Dance."
After leaving the Bulls at the end of the 1997-1998 seasonβthe year featured in the new ESPN documentary series "The Last Dance"βPhil Jackson had one year off and started to write this bookβtogether with his old friend, fellow player and coach, the basketball novelist Charley Rosen. Then Phil took the LA Lakers coaching job, Rosen followed him there, and by the time they finished writing this book it was 2000 and Phil had won yet another NBA championship, the first of five he would win with his new team.Β
Β Β Β InΒ MoreΒ thanΒ aΒ Game, Jackson and Rosen look backward to their origins as players and coaches, forward to the future of theΒ game of basketball, and linger in the moving target of the presentβlavishing page after page on the Triangle Offense and all the ways it reveals the essence of theΒ gameΒ of basketball they both love so much. This is Jackson in his prime, transitioning from the Bulls to the Lakers, a master of the art of winning, who would go on to claimΒ moreΒ NBA championships, eleven,Β thanΒ any other coach in NBA history. As he writes inΒ MoreΒ thanΒ aΒ GameΒ of his newest championship team: "We won because our fundamentals were sound, because Shaq was so dominant and Kobe was so creative, but we also won because we developed a certain confidence in our ability to win."