time with Jackson, more or less reached a distanced truce with him. An aging Laker team faced with these strains, veterans learning the triangle offense, and Malone's injury narrowly won the Pacific division and fought its way through the Western Conference playoffs (marked by a series-turning miracle game-winning shot against San Antonio by Derek Fisher and a career game from Kareem Rush to eliminate Minnesota in the conference finals) and advanced to the Finals. The Lakers faced a less-heralded but deeply talented Detroit Pistons team, where Jackson noted the pros and cons of Detroit coach Larry Brown, saying that Brown was a great coach who got his teams to play well above their previous levels but was so impossible to satisfy that players eventually stopped listening to him; Jackson also noted the difficulties in determining who the "key" to Detroit was (as the Pistons did not have obvious superstars along the lines of Shaq and Kobe) and gearing his Lakers towards stopping that player. The Pistons ended up winning the title with a decisive 4-1 swing, and Jackson wrote that as the series wound down, he realized who the key for Detroit was: Chauncey Billups. The 2003-2004 Lakers' season, nicknamed "The Last Chance" and with a theme of sacrifice, ended short of an NBA championship and thus in disappointment. Aftermath and controversy The controversy surrounding the book concerns Jackson's characterization of Bryant and treatment of the breakup. In The Last Season Jackson suggests Bryant's influence on the dissolution and labels him "uncoachable". According to Jackson, in Bryant's exit interview with him he stated that O'Neal's fate with the Lakers would affect his decision to return, saying "I'm tired of being a sidekick." Later in a phone call with Lakers owner Jerry Buss, Jackson recounts Buss's explanation of the team's preference for Bryant rather than O'Neal, of which Jackson disapproved: "It's not that I'm enamoured with Kobe's character. But he is twenty-six in August. The seven years ahead are the prime years of his career....I have to serve the people who are loyal to me. My mail runs about 5-1 on Kobe to Shaq." Jackson makes his own departure sound like a mutual decision with Lakers management, saying he was "at peace" with the outcome, but he recorded Buss's remark: "We're going in a different direction." But Jackson's thoughts on Bryant caused the most stir. While calling coaching O'Neal "an experience