Q. Do you have any thoughts on the playoffs?
JACKSON: I’ve gotten comments from people who thought it was a really great series because it was so close. And I had more comments from coaches about what bad basketball we saw in the playoffs — one-on-one ball, street ball. So it was just complete opposites. Personally, I think Cleveland had to do what they did to manufacture the games to be as close as they got them. It was a great demonstration of perseverance by LeBron James, trying to keep the games close and trying to do the best he could.
For Golden State, it was pretty exciting for that town and for that team. There’s an awful lot of pressure for a team to come into the finals without any finals experience. In the first couple of games, they looked like they didn’t quite know how to compete at that level, with the necessary intensity and physicality. The games just got more physical, and they adjusted.
Q. In the middle of the playoffs, you took to Twitter to ask N.B.A. analysts to give you “some diagnostics” on how 3-point-oriented teams were faring. It struck most as a criticism of teams like the Warriors who take a lot of 3-point shots. You asked, “How’s it goink?” What was that about?
JACKSON: They have all these analysts. I just wanted to see someone come back to me with statistics: Is 3-point shooting in the playoffs as consistent as it is in the regular season? Does your 3-point-shooting percentage change because you’re in the playoffs? No one figured that one out. And that’s probably me being obtuse to leave it open at the end. But “goink” is one of those New York expressions that we use, and I will tell you this: I learned something. Someone sent me the fact that if you look it up on Urban Dictionary, you’ll find out what it means in today’s society.
Q. Should I look?
JACKSON: Well, it’s rather bizarre to say the least.
Q. So it wasn’t just a typo?
JACKSON: “Goink” is a castoff expression, right? Instead of, “How’s it going?,” it’s, “How’s it goink?” It turned out to be either a combination of a mixed ethnic group: part Korean, part Chinese. Or it’s a vernacular term for how do you deal with a sexual partner.