JERRY SLOAN, JAZZ HEAD COACH

On Boozer
“That’s credit to him because he’s always fought back.  Everybody goes through a stage when things are tough on them, but I think he has to do the work, and he certainly did it tonight.  He stepped up to play and I thought he had some terrific moments.  He had 20 rebounds in the ballgame, and I thought overall, he was much more reliable on the defensive end.  He got a beat a time or two early, but I thought he kept fighting and trying to recover from some of the things he got beat on earlier in the first two games.”

On how this win changes the series
“Well we just have to get ready to play.  You look at it as if the season’s over if you don’t get ready to play again. You got to try to get yourselves ready to play and compete.  That was the most important thing, I thought we competed very hard.  A little bit more than what we had over there.  I think that’s a learning process with some of our younger guys.”

On Deron
“He’s always seemed poised.  That’s the wonderful thing about Deron—he is a very poised player.  They got after him a little bit, made us turn the ball over a little bit, but I feel very comfortable when he has the basketball in his hands and the decisions he’s made.  For a young player, I think he’s done a terrific job.”

RONNIE BREWER, JAZZ GUARD

On the elbow from Kobe
“I caught an elbow, but it’s a part of basketball. It’s a physical game.  It’s (my head) still swollen.”

On Boozer’s big game
“We knew he was going to come out sooner or later. He’s a great player. All-star caliber guy. We’re going to keep on going to him. It’s not like we’re going to shy away from him, Memo, or AK.  We’re going to continue to go through those guys. Carlos stepped up big for us tonight.”

CARLOS BOOZER, JAZZ FORWARD

On his breakout game of the playoffs
“I just tried to stop thinking so much out there.  I think we’ve all been waiting for such a big game out of me and I’ve been waiting for it too.  And putting a little too much pressure on myself, so I tried to go back to the basics and just have fun out there, enjoy the game, play with more passion, and try to stay out of foul trouble.”

On stepping up his defense
“That was the key.  I thought if I could get out there and be aggressive defensively, try to get some steals, try to be a little bit more aggressive with my feet, move my feet better and stay out of foul trouble and it just trickled down.  Everybody played in the passing lanes.  I thought we did a good job defensively.”

PHIL JACKSON, LAKERS HEAD COACH

On the game
“Well they got after us today early in that first quarter after Fish [Derek Fisher] got his second foul and we had to make an adjustment out there. I think they went on a 15-3 run and kind of maintained the energy that first half. I thought we came back, had our shot at the end of the game; we had a play on a tip that didn’t work, you know we didn’t execute very well, and lost our opportunity as they scored two in a row. But you know I told the guys they made a good comeback. They came back to win that ballgame, they just couldn’t get the right plays at the right time.

On the last play
“(Kobe) fumbled the ball that’s what’s wrong. I don’t know if he was trying to get it out of his hands too soon or what happened but it looked like he had it, and he just didn’t wrap it up.”

On Pau Gasol’s play.
“This is a game in which Pau was looking at the referees every time he got stripped there in the first half and they were just attacking him every time he put the ball on the floor.”

KOBE BRYANT, LAKERS GUARD

On the game
 “We turned the ball over quite a bit.  Down the stretch in a critical situation we put them on the line four or five straight possessions and gave them easy opportunities.  We clawed back, but with that said we can’t turn the ball over 18 times.  We had a lot of open looks that just didn’t go for us.  You can sustain a night like that, when shots don’t fall.  We’ve really got to keep our turnovers down and not allow them to get out in transition and get some easy points.”

On Carlos Boozer
We expected that.  We expected him to come out and have a monster performance.  Again, the thing that hurt us was the transition points. Getting out on the break and getting those easy opportunities.”

On Pau Gasol
“I think they did a good job crowding him once he put the ball on the floor and tried to surround him.  We’ll have to make our adjustments in this next game in terms of freeing him up a little bit.  Get him a little more spacing.”

PAU GASOL, LAKERS CENTER

On playing the Jazz at home
“We did expect them to play more comfortable and confident, and they really set the tone early. We didn’t do a good job taking care of the ball. There is still a lot of room for improvement. We didn’t play well at all.”

On how Boozer played tonight
“He definitely stepped it up. He got going later on, not so much in the first quarter. He got going in the second quarter and second half. I didn’t feel like we did a good job attacking him like we did in other games.”

RONNY TURIAF, LAKERS CENTER

On playing the Jazz at home
“They had the advantage of the home floor for sure. You always play better when you play at home. Those guys are great players, it’s not like they can’t play basketball. For me it’s plain and simple, you play at home, you play a lot better.”

On Gasol “struggling tonight”
“’Struggle’ is a big word. Did he not have a great night? Yes that’s true, but he still did what he had to do. He kept playing.”