knicks1248 wrote:

knickscity wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

nixluva wrote:

smackeddog wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

smackeddog wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:The Sixers put pressure on the triangle offense and the Knicks got flustered, committing 20 turnovers.

This is what every team does to the knicks, it's such a easy offense to defend because by the 3rd qtr it becomes so predictable, you can defend it with your eyes close.

Thats why I kill fisher every time, because he stays with it no matter what, but every so often when he doesn't, we win the fckng game.

Of course our players talent level has nothing to do with it.

Of course the level of talent matters, that's why the coach should adjust to his roster, how many times we have to go through this.

Let me dummy it down, If your system is run and gun, and your pg is Calderone, do you still trying and run or do you adjust to your starting PG?

There's no excuse for any coach in any sport to not have his team not playing hard team ball(majority of our loses since the trade have been blow outs) 99.9% of the time. You don't need talent to play hard, and fisher in his own words stated, he has hard time understanding why these guys have to be motivated at this level. A good coach plays the guys the work hard and practice hard, fisher plays his entire roster no matter what. That's not setting a good example.

Stop running the triangle until you can get the guys who can run it, focus on building these kids confidence.

We keep running the triangle because we are trying to establish it. That's the priority this season, not winning. I don't get what's so hard to understand, unless you're one of those people who thinks we need to win as many games as possible and screw up our draft.

Yes and besides it's the lack of enough players who are able to create against pressure that is the limiting factor and not the Triangle. The more players we have who can create their own offense the better the team will be, but right now we don't have a lot of those kinds of players so of course the Triangle looks lame at times. That's a talent thing and not a scheme thing.

Most teams don't run the triangle because of it's complexity - not because they and their players can't implement it, but because most coaches don't have the luxury of implementing an offense that can often take their players two full seasons to learn.

Still, a lot of sets found in the triangle are "borrowed" by coaches at every level.

Conceptually, the triangle actually quite simple - all players on the strong side orient themselves into a triangular formation. These players can then pass, post, shoot, or even dribble-drive for profit:

The complexity comes from:

the myriad methods players can use to initiate the triangle
the variety of options players have from any point on the floor - each player on the floor must a) know what they're supposed to do and b) read the rest of the team to make sure that everyone's on the same page

When it works, it works incredibly well...but so do a lot of other offensive systems. As great as the triangle is, any system can result in wins with the right coaching and personnel.

Speaking of the right personnel, that's another challenge with the triangle. To be optimally effective, you need big men who are great at passing, a variety of post players, and a team full of shooters. If you look at the Lakers squads that run the triangle in the modern era, they had above-average post players in Shaq and Gasol, above-average shooters at nearly every position, and excellent passers in Kobe, Fisher, Gasol, Shaq, etc.

Finally, some people say that the triangle died at the NBA level when Tex Winter (it's inventor) became too old to teach it. While I think this is pessimistic , Winter advised Phil Jackson on triangle implementation for nearly his entire career, and Winter was the undisputed triangle expert.

Suffice to say, most teams don't run the triangle because it takes time to learn it, and time is one thing most pro coaches don't have. If a coach doesn't wrack up easy wins because the players are still working thru the offense, he's in danger of getting fired.

Some additional reading:

Great review of the triangle's fundamentals: Triangle Offense, Coach's Clipboard Playbook

A solid article about the triangle back when SI and CNN were doing decent work: Tex Winter's famed triangle offense is out of favor in NBA

Written 3 Jan, 2014. 4,185 views. Asked to answer by Matt Brenner.
Upvote25
Downvote
Comment
More Answers Below. Related Questions
Why don't NBA offenses attempt double screens/picks more often?
How has Phil Jackson been able to successfully run the Triangle Offense for so many years?
2012-13 NBA Season: How would the Lakers have been different this year if Phil Jackson was their coach?
William Petroff
William Petroff
14 upvotes by Marc Bodnick, Jonathan Brill, Jason Lancaster, (more)
For starters:
As Dave Hogg and Jonathan Brill have already mentioned, it's not like the Triangle Offense took a bunch of schlubs and made them into a championship-caliber team; each one of Phil Jackson's teams were buoyed by two (eventual) Hall-of-Famers, surrounded with a host of quality role-players. So, we don't really know how much of it is the "system" and how much it is the players in the system. If the Atlanta Hawks go out and run the triangle and absolutely destroy everyone in the league, then maybe this becomes a different discussion, but I don't really see that happening.
The triangle is hard for players. It's an incredibly hard system to run because, most of the time, it relies on a player's ability to read the defense and react to it. This can leave a team trying to run the offense incredibly susceptible to failure if they don't have good five-man units that can run the thing. It's also predicated on a lot of off-ball movement and timing, which, given the way the game is played at the lower levels, are skill-sets that many players don't really develop to the degree they need to in order to effectively run the system.
Being a coach at the elite level is a challenging business and a position that always comes with its fair share of critics (of both the educated and uneducated variety). As such, coaches often choose the (perceived) "safe" path, meaning that the league is rife with mimicry. Part of the reason that nobody runs the triangle is because nobody runs the triangle; if someone did and it didn't work, then the coach is often "stupid" for pursuing a "bad strategy", whereas a coach can deflect some of that criticism when losing while utilizing a conventional approach. It's also a business where, by the time you reach that level, you're typically very ingrained in a particular way of doing things. Mike D'antoni runs a free-flowing, offensive-centric system because that's who he is and that's what he's developed over the years; after doing something for so long, a lot of times you don't really know how to do something else.
It's also a hard system to coach. Not in the sense that it's a difficult system to teach-- though I suspect it is --as much as it's a hard system for a coach to get used to using given how little control over the system is maintained on the sidelines during a game. The coach can't always be calling plays in from the sideline (since there really aren't many), so a coach cedes some level of control that he might otherwise have to his players and not being in control isn't always a pleasant prospect for a lot of coaches.

Dave Hogg, Sportswriter for more than 20 years
25 upvotes by Jonathan Brill, Sella Rafaeli, Aaron Ellis, (more)
Because the triangle offense isn't particularly revolutionary on its own. It is an offensive system that maximizes the contributions of a star wing (Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant), especially when they can play off another All-Star player (Scottie Pippen, Shaquille O'Neal or Pau Gasol). If you don't have two superstars, one of whom happens to be one of the greatest pure srers in NBA history, it's just another offense.

Written 3 Jan, 2014. 1,467 views. Asked to answer by Matt Brenner.
Upvote25
Downvote
Comment
Matt Johnson
Matt Johnson, Analyst, Project Runner, & Senior Mod... (more)
9 upvotes by Marc Bodnick, Jonathan Brill, Quora User, (more)
One note I'll add to the good answers you already see here is that it depends on the brains of the players in a way more offenses don't. Now to be clear, by that I don't actually mean "complexity".

Ask a player like Ron Artest who never seemed to get the scheme even after years, and sure he'll talk about it like it's complexity is insane:

“See, I can’t really understand the Triangle [offense],” he admits. “There’s 1,000 plays in the Triangle. It’s such a challenge. I get so frustrated about it, I have to call my psychiatrist. So I just stay in my one spot in the corner. If I leave my spot, I get yelled at. Phil’s gonna say, ‘What are you doing over there?!?’ So I just don’t move.”

Ron Artest doesn’t really get the triangle offense — or how to be vegan

But that's impossible to square with what you see when you watch Pau Gasol join the team. With Gasol it was like he already knew the offense without being taught anything. I don't care who you are, if the scheme has a lot of plays, it will take you a while to look that comfortable.

So how is it that the Artest can never learn it, but for Gasol it's actually easier than a typical scheme?

It's because the scheme operates more like a set of guiding preferences. Players have to read and react, and in this league full of insane bodies, there are a lot of players who can't do that.

Additionally, if you have one brilliant playmaker on the team, it would be a waste to use the Triangle. Why take the thinking away from your best thinker?

So, the obvious time to try to use something like the Triangle is when you've got a team full of really smart players but not floor general of outlier brilliance. It's not really a thing you can count on happening.

Of course this makes one ask the question:

Well then why did it work so well for Phil?

First and foremost because he had great talent to work with, which would have looked great no matter what (and when he didn't have that talent, it didn't look great).

I don't mean to demean Phil's coaching because I think he did a great job on a number of levels, but it's a huge mistake to think "11 rings can't be a coincidence".

Jackson wasn't seen as the greatest genius in the game when he was in Chicago. He was a solid coach with great talent to work with, and by the time he was done then, he had the kind of clout that only comes from winning titles.

Jackson was the right coach for the Lakers in no small part because he was someone who could come in and bend Shaq & Kobe's ears. Were he a new coach at the time - even if he behaved identically - it wouldn't have worked the same way at all.

What about the notion that it was the Triangle that made Jordan play "the right way"? Mythology. The best thing about the Jackson Bulls offense was its rebounding, which had very little to do with how Jordan changed his game to play in the Triangle, and everything to do with acquiring rebounding talent and letting them focus on that while the guys on the perimeter focused on the actual attack.

Of course one shouldn't take that to imply that Jackson was attempting to force some rigid system on his players and misguidedly attributing all his success to this system. With "the Triangle" Jordan became less ball dominant while not less impactful and Pippen was given more room to blossom, and also with "the Triangle" he molded a scheme that worked superbly around Shaq, and as mentioned with "the Triangle" Pau Gasol sometimes looks like an artist out there. It's not that it's not real, it's just that not some rigid object. It's a guiding principle whose focus can be adjusted.

Written 3 Jan, 2014. 863 views.
Upvote9
Downvote
Comment1
Jonathan Brill
Jonathan Brill, Writer Relations at Quora
10 upvotes by Sella Rafaeli, Justin Benson, Matt Brenner, (more)
Its not clear the triangle offense is that great. Its certainly flexible and given the talent Phil and his staff had to work with, he made great use of it. But we'll never know if another more standard offense wouldn't have been just as good a fit for two of the best players in NBA history and their very strong supporting casts. If anything, the triangle seemed to cause huge problems for the talent the Lakers had to work with in their years with Pau and Bynum.

Part of the problem is that looking at the championship teams only isn't necessarily a great indicator of the best offense. If you really wanted to look at offense, you'd want to control for the coach and the talent and measure points scored across all games during a season. When you think about how close the Spurs came to beating the Heat in the 2013 championship, you probably wouldn't want to draw many conclusive distinctions from the Heat's come from behind surprising victory.

Written 3 Jan, 2014. 697 views. Asked to answer by Matt Brenner.
Upvote10
Downvote
Comment
Ryan Struck
Ryan Struck
2 upvotes by Jonathan Brill and Matt Brenner.
I think people miss what the beauty of the Triangle Offense creates, before you even begin to run the many OPTIONS (not plays)

With the Ball on the WING, player in the POST, player in the CORNER for the sideline TRIANGLE. Player at the Point, creates another TRIANGLE between the WING, POST & POINT. In these 4 positions, all defenders are in DENIAL of their man, and therefore the WING with the ball, is able to see where to go with the Ball - All players are ONE pass away to receive the ball.

The fifth player, is in the most important position - The WEAK WING/POST (He is holding space on the weakside). In the WEAKSIDE POST, his defender potentially could play HELP defense, however if he plays HELP, this creates an easy passing lane when the WEAKSIDE POST flashes to the STRONG ELBOW. If his defender plays him tight and goes to the WING, this creates more driving lanes, as he should be in HELP when his player is on the WING. In the WEAKSIDE POST, this creates the 3rd TRIANGLE, between the STRONGSIDE & WEAKSIDE POST players and the player at the POINT.

With every player One on One with their man, the ball is passed to the OPEN man. Depending on where that pass goes, determines the actions of the players.

For example I teach an OPTION, where the Ball goes into the Post. Now the CORNER speed cuts and clears to opposite corner, WING goes over POST & screens WEAK POST. The TRIANGLE can be reset on the other side and another set of options are presented, depending upon where the next pass goes.

OPTIONS for the Cut from CORNER & WING, they could Split cut, WING goes low, CORNER goes over and he becomes the screener. WING could set what Tex Winter calls a 'Rebound Screen' (Down screen) CORNER goes over, WING rolls. What ever option the players choose, depends on how the Defense plays them on that possession.

The beauty about those cuts I've just explained. As soon as the ball hits the POST, how many defenders do you think will turn the head and look at the ball. When that defender does, he is beat on a cut.

Remember the Pistons double teaming Jordan, in the TRIANGLE you can't double team, you get punished.

Currently I teach the TRIANGLE offense to Under 11's, 13's, 15's, 17's & Seniors. As I have been with my Under 13's for a few years now, and have taught them how to read the defense, they are starting to put the pieces of the Offense together.

Written 7 Jan. 228 views.
Upvote2
Downvote
Comment
Quora User
Quora User, We don't know what the internet is fo... (more)
6 upvotes by Jonathan Brill, Marc Bodnick, Inigo Sarmiento, (more)
Defense wins championships. One offense is as good as another, as long as it gets the ball in the hands of your best players. The fact that Jordan, Pippen, James, Wade, and Bryant were/are all NBA defensive players matters more than their offense ever did.

Nix you can't run this system without the right talent and coach, and it's been documented to death. Which is why it baffles the hell out of me as to why are we trying to force it on a bunch of weak ass talent. Players don't want to think that hard when playing a game, and if the avg player take 2 yrs to learn it, whats going to happen next yr, and why did phil trade his best players after 2 months because they couldn't get it.

So fisher is going to look like a bad coach if he doesn't have top tier talent..

It's being implemented because thats all Fisher knows. At this point I dont think think Phil is triangle married considering some of the trade targets he was reportedly looking at.

Fisher was in the NBA 17 yrs, 5 in which he played in the TRIANGLE, I find it hard to believe that's all he knows, but since the system doesn't involve almost no play calling, he was put here as a puppet. Even when phil coach, he had the luxury of having the best players in the history of the game, he very rarely bark orders, and rarely call timeouts when teams would go on a run against them. I mostly saw phil whistle orders and point.

knickscity wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

knickscity wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

nixluva wrote:

smackeddog wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

smackeddog wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:The Sixers put pressure on the triangle offense and the Knicks got flustered, committing 20 turnovers.

This is what every team does to the knicks, it's such a easy offense to defend because by the 3rd qtr it becomes so predictable, you can defend it with your eyes close.

Thats why I kill fisher every time, because he stays with it no matter what, but every so often when he doesn't, we win the fckng game.

Of course our players talent level has nothing to do with it.

Of course the level of talent matters, that's why the coach should adjust to his roster, how many times we have to go through this.

Let me dummy it down, If your system is run and gun, and your pg is Calderone, do you still trying and run or do you adjust to your starting PG?

There's no excuse for any coach in any sport to not have his team not playing hard team ball(majority of our loses since the trade have been blow outs) 99.9% of the time. You don't need talent to play hard, and fisher in his own words stated, he has hard time understanding why these guys have to be motivated at this level. A good coach plays the guys the work hard and practice hard, fisher plays his entire roster no matter what. That's not setting a good example.

Stop running the triangle until you can get the guys who can run it, focus on building these kids confidence.

We keep running the triangle because we are trying to establish it. That's the priority this season, not winning. I don't get what's so hard to understand, unless you're one of those people who thinks we need to win as many games as possible and screw up our draft.

Yes and besides it's the lack of enough players who are able to create against pressure that is the limiting factor and not the Triangle. The more players we have who can create their own offense the better the team will be, but right now we don't have a lot of those kinds of players so of course the Triangle looks lame at times. That's a talent thing and not a scheme thing.

Most teams don't run the triangle because of it's complexity - not because they and their players can't implement it, but because most coaches don't have the luxury of implementing an offense that can often take their players two full seasons to learn.

Still, a lot of sets found in the triangle are "borrowed" by coaches at every level.

Conceptually, the triangle actually quite simple - all players on the strong side orient themselves into a triangular formation. These players can then pass, post, shoot, or even dribble-drive for profit:

The complexity comes from:

the myriad methods players can use to initiate the triangle
the variety of options players have from any point on the floor - each player on the floor must a) know what they're supposed to do and b) read the rest of the team to make sure that everyone's on the same page

When it works, it works incredibly well...but so do a lot of other offensive systems. As great as the triangle is, any system can result in wins with the right coaching and personnel.

Speaking of the right personnel, that's another challenge with the triangle. To be optimally effective, you need big men who are great at passing, a variety of post players, and a team full of shooters. If you look at the Lakers squads that run the triangle in the modern era, they had above-average post players in Shaq and Gasol, above-average shooters at nearly every position, and excellent passers in Kobe, Fisher, Gasol, Shaq, etc.

Finally, some people say that the triangle died at the NBA level when Tex Winter (it's inventor) became too old to teach it. While I think this is pessimistic , Winter advised Phil Jackson on triangle implementation for nearly his entire career, and Winter was the undisputed triangle expert.

Suffice to say, most teams don't run the triangle because it takes time to learn it, and time is one thing most pro coaches don't have. If a coach doesn't wrack up easy wins because the players are still working thru the offense, he's in danger of getting fired.

Some additional reading:

Great review of the triangle's fundamentals: Triangle Offense, Coach's Clipboard Playbook

A solid article about the triangle back when SI and CNN were doing decent work: Tex Winter's famed triangle offense is out of favor in NBA

Written 3 Jan, 2014. 4,185 views. Asked to answer by Matt Brenner.
Upvote25
Downvote
Comment
More Answers Below. Related Questions
Why don't NBA offenses attempt double screens/picks more often?
How has Phil Jackson been able to successfully run the Triangle Offense for so many years?
2012-13 NBA Season: How would the Lakers have been different this year if Phil Jackson was their coach?
William Petroff
William Petroff
14 upvotes by Marc Bodnick, Jonathan Brill, Jason Lancaster, (more)
For starters:
As Dave Hogg and Jonathan Brill have already mentioned, it's not like the Triangle Offense took a bunch of schlubs and made them into a championship-caliber team; each one of Phil Jackson's teams were buoyed by two (eventual) Hall-of-Famers, surrounded with a host of quality role-players. So, we don't really know how much of it is the "system" and how much it is the players in the system. If the Atlanta Hawks go out and run the triangle and absolutely destroy everyone in the league, then maybe this becomes a different discussion, but I don't really see that happening.
The triangle is hard for players. It's an incredibly hard system to run because, most of the time, it relies on a player's ability to read the defense and react to it. This can leave a team trying to run the offense incredibly susceptible to failure if they don't have good five-man units that can run the thing. It's also predicated on a lot of off-ball movement and timing, which, given the way the game is played at the lower levels, are skill-sets that many players don't really develop to the degree they need to in order to effectively run the system.
Being a coach at the elite level is a challenging business and a position that always comes with its fair share of critics (of both the educated and uneducated variety). As such, coaches often choose the (perceived) "safe" path, meaning that the league is rife with mimicry. Part of the reason that nobody runs the triangle is because nobody runs the triangle; if someone did and it didn't work, then the coach is often "stupid" for pursuing a "bad strategy", whereas a coach can deflect some of that criticism when losing while utilizing a conventional approach. It's also a business where, by the time you reach that level, you're typically very ingrained in a particular way of doing things. Mike D'antoni runs a free-flowing, offensive-centric system because that's who he is and that's what he's developed over the years; after doing something for so long, a lot of times you don't really know how to do something else.
It's also a hard system to coach. Not in the sense that it's a difficult system to teach-- though I suspect it is --as much as it's a hard system for a coach to get used to using given how little control over the system is maintained on the sidelines during a game. The coach can't always be calling plays in from the sideline (since there really aren't many), so a coach cedes some level of control that he might otherwise have to his players and not being in control isn't always a pleasant prospect for a lot of coaches.

Dave Hogg, Sportswriter for more than 20 years
25 upvotes by Jonathan Brill, Sella Rafaeli, Aaron Ellis, (more)
Because the triangle offense isn't particularly revolutionary on its own. It is an offensive system that maximizes the contributions of a star wing (Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant), especially when they can play off another All-Star player (Scottie Pippen, Shaquille O'Neal or Pau Gasol). If you don't have two superstars, one of whom happens to be one of the greatest pure srers in NBA history, it's just another offense.

Written 3 Jan, 2014. 1,467 views. Asked to answer by Matt Brenner.
Upvote25
Downvote
Comment
Matt Johnson
Matt Johnson, Analyst, Project Runner, & Senior Mod... (more)
9 upvotes by Marc Bodnick, Jonathan Brill, Quora User, (more)
One note I'll add to the good answers you already see here is that it depends on the brains of the players in a way more offenses don't. Now to be clear, by that I don't actually mean "complexity".

Ask a player like Ron Artest who never seemed to get the scheme even after years, and sure he'll talk about it like it's complexity is insane:

“See, I can’t really understand the Triangle [offense],” he admits. “There’s 1,000 plays in the Triangle. It’s such a challenge. I get so frustrated about it, I have to call my psychiatrist. So I just stay in my one spot in the corner. If I leave my spot, I get yelled at. Phil’s gonna say, ‘What are you doing over there?!?’ So I just don’t move.”

Ron Artest doesn’t really get the triangle offense — or how to be vegan

But that's impossible to square with what you see when you watch Pau Gasol join the team. With Gasol it was like he already knew the offense without being taught anything. I don't care who you are, if the scheme has a lot of plays, it will take you a while to look that comfortable.

So how is it that the Artest can never learn it, but for Gasol it's actually easier than a typical scheme?

It's because the scheme operates more like a set of guiding preferences. Players have to read and react, and in this league full of insane bodies, there are a lot of players who can't do that.

Additionally, if you have one brilliant playmaker on the team, it would be a waste to use the Triangle. Why take the thinking away from your best thinker?

So, the obvious time to try to use something like the Triangle is when you've got a team full of really smart players but not floor general of outlier brilliance. It's not really a thing you can count on happening.

Of course this makes one ask the question:

Well then why did it work so well for Phil?

First and foremost because he had great talent to work with, which would have looked great no matter what (and when he didn't have that talent, it didn't look great).

I don't mean to demean Phil's coaching because I think he did a great job on a number of levels, but it's a huge mistake to think "11 rings can't be a coincidence".

Jackson wasn't seen as the greatest genius in the game when he was in Chicago. He was a solid coach with great talent to work with, and by the time he was done then, he had the kind of clout that only comes from winning titles.

Jackson was the right coach for the Lakers in no small part because he was someone who could come in and bend Shaq & Kobe's ears. Were he a new coach at the time - even if he behaved identically - it wouldn't have worked the same way at all.

What about the notion that it was the Triangle that made Jordan play "the right way"? Mythology. The best thing about the Jackson Bulls offense was its rebounding, which had very little to do with how Jordan changed his game to play in the Triangle, and everything to do with acquiring rebounding talent and letting them focus on that while the guys on the perimeter focused on the actual attack.

Of course one shouldn't take that to imply that Jackson was attempting to force some rigid system on his players and misguidedly attributing all his success to this system. With "the Triangle" Jordan became less ball dominant while not less impactful and Pippen was given more room to blossom, and also with "the Triangle" he molded a scheme that worked superbly around Shaq, and as mentioned with "the Triangle" Pau Gasol sometimes looks like an artist out there. It's not that it's not real, it's just that not some rigid object. It's a guiding principle whose focus can be adjusted.

Written 3 Jan, 2014. 863 views.
Upvote9
Downvote
Comment1
Jonathan Brill
Jonathan Brill, Writer Relations at Quora
10 upvotes by Sella Rafaeli, Justin Benson, Matt Brenner, (more)
Its not clear the triangle offense is that great. Its certainly flexible and given the talent Phil and his staff had to work with, he made great use of it. But we'll never know if another more standard offense wouldn't have been just as good a fit for two of the best players in NBA history and their very strong supporting casts. If anything, the triangle seemed to cause huge problems for the talent the Lakers had to work with in their years with Pau and Bynum.

Part of the problem is that looking at the championship teams only isn't necessarily a great indicator of the best offense. If you really wanted to look at offense, you'd want to control for the coach and the talent and measure points scored across all games during a season. When you think about how close the Spurs came to beating the Heat in the 2013 championship, you probably wouldn't want to draw many conclusive distinctions from the Heat's come from behind surprising victory.

Written 3 Jan, 2014. 697 views. Asked to answer by Matt Brenner.
Upvote10
Downvote
Comment
Ryan Struck
Ryan Struck
2 upvotes by Jonathan Brill and Matt Brenner.
I think people miss what the beauty of the Triangle Offense creates, before you even begin to run the many OPTIONS (not plays)

With the Ball on the WING, player in the POST, player in the CORNER for the sideline TRIANGLE. Player at the Point, creates another TRIANGLE between the WING, POST & POINT. In these 4 positions, all defenders are in DENIAL of their man, and therefore the WING with the ball, is able to see where to go with the Ball - All players are ONE pass away to receive the ball.

The fifth player, is in the most important position - The WEAK WING/POST (He is holding space on the weakside). In the WEAKSIDE POST, his defender potentially could play HELP defense, however if he plays HELP, this creates an easy passing lane when the WEAKSIDE POST flashes to the STRONG ELBOW. If his defender plays him tight and goes to the WING, this creates more driving lanes, as he should be in HELP when his player is on the WING. In the WEAKSIDE POST, this creates the 3rd TRIANGLE, between the STRONGSIDE & WEAKSIDE POST players and the player at the POINT.

With every player One on One with their man, the ball is passed to the OPEN man. Depending on where that pass goes, determines the actions of the players.

For example I teach an OPTION, where the Ball goes into the Post. Now the CORNER speed cuts and clears to opposite corner, WING goes over POST & screens WEAK POST. The TRIANGLE can be reset on the other side and another set of options are presented, depending upon where the next pass goes.

OPTIONS for the Cut from CORNER & WING, they could Split cut, WING goes low, CORNER goes over and he becomes the screener. WING could set what Tex Winter calls a 'Rebound Screen' (Down screen) CORNER goes over, WING rolls. What ever option the players choose, depends on how the Defense plays them on that possession.

The beauty about those cuts I've just explained. As soon as the ball hits the POST, how many defenders do you think will turn the head and look at the ball. When that defender does, he is beat on a cut.

Remember the Pistons double teaming Jordan, in the TRIANGLE you can't double team, you get punished.

Currently I teach the TRIANGLE offense to Under 11's, 13's, 15's, 17's & Seniors. As I have been with my Under 13's for a few years now, and have taught them how to read the defense, they are starting to put the pieces of the Offense together.

Written 7 Jan. 228 views.
Upvote2
Downvote
Comment
Quora User
Quora User, We don't know what the internet is fo... (more)
6 upvotes by Jonathan Brill, Marc Bodnick, Inigo Sarmiento, (more)
Defense wins championships. One offense is as good as another, as long as it gets the ball in the hands of your best players. The fact that Jordan, Pippen, James, Wade, and Bryant were/are all NBA defensive players matters more than their offense ever did.

Nix you can't run this system without the right talent and coach, and it's been documented to death. Which is why it baffles the hell out of me as to why are we trying to force it on a bunch of weak ass talent. Players don't want to think that hard when playing a game, and if the avg player take 2 yrs to learn it, whats going to happen next yr, and why did phil trade his best players after 2 months because they couldn't get it.

So fisher is going to look like a bad coach if he doesn't have top tier talent..

It's being implemented because thats all Fisher knows. At this point I dont think think Phil is triangle married considering some of the trade targets he was reportedly looking at.

Fisher was in the NBA 17 yrs, 5 in which he played in the TRIANGLE, I find it hard to believe that's all he knows, but since the system doesn't involve almost no play calling, he was put here as a puppet. Even when phil coach, he had the luxury of having the best players in the history of the game, he very rarely bark orders, and rarely call timeouts when teams would go on a run against them. I mostly saw phil whistle orders and point.

Close to half of Fishers career he wasnt even a starter, so yeah, it's quite fair to say he only knows the triangle.

Oh c'mon! You think that he did not understand the offense that was being run in OKC because he was not starting?

knickscity wrote:

mreinman wrote:

knickscity wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

knickscity wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

nixluva wrote:

smackeddog wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

smackeddog wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:The Sixers put pressure on the triangle offense and the Knicks got flustered, committing 20 turnovers.

This is what every team does to the knicks, it's such a easy offense to defend because by the 3rd qtr it becomes so predictable, you can defend it with your eyes close.

Thats why I kill fisher every time, because he stays with it no matter what, but every so often when he doesn't, we win the fckng game.

Of course our players talent level has nothing to do with it.

Of course the level of talent matters, that's why the coach should adjust to his roster, how many times we have to go through this.

Let me dummy it down, If your system is run and gun, and your pg is Calderone, do you still trying and run or do you adjust to your starting PG?

There's no excuse for any coach in any sport to not have his team not playing hard team ball(majority of our loses since the trade have been blow outs) 99.9% of the time. You don't need talent to play hard, and fisher in his own words stated, he has hard time understanding why these guys have to be motivated at this level. A good coach plays the guys the work hard and practice hard, fisher plays his entire roster no matter what. That's not setting a good example.

Stop running the triangle until you can get the guys who can run it, focus on building these kids confidence.

We keep running the triangle because we are trying to establish it. That's the priority this season, not winning. I don't get what's so hard to understand, unless you're one of those people who thinks we need to win as many games as possible and screw up our draft.

Yes and besides it's the lack of enough players who are able to create against pressure that is the limiting factor and not the Triangle. The more players we have who can create their own offense the better the team will be, but right now we don't have a lot of those kinds of players so of course the Triangle looks lame at times. That's a talent thing and not a scheme thing.

Most teams don't run the triangle because of it's complexity - not because they and their players can't implement it, but because most coaches don't have the luxury of implementing an offense that can often take their players two full seasons to learn.

Still, a lot of sets found in the triangle are "borrowed" by coaches at every level.

Conceptually, the triangle actually quite simple - all players on the strong side orient themselves into a triangular formation. These players can then pass, post, shoot, or even dribble-drive for profit:

The complexity comes from:

the myriad methods players can use to initiate the triangle
the variety of options players have from any point on the floor - each player on the floor must a) know what they're supposed to do and b) read the rest of the team to make sure that everyone's on the same page

When it works, it works incredibly well...but so do a lot of other offensive systems. As great as the triangle is, any system can result in wins with the right coaching and personnel.

Speaking of the right personnel, that's another challenge with the triangle. To be optimally effective, you need big men who are great at passing, a variety of post players, and a team full of shooters. If you look at the Lakers squads that run the triangle in the modern era, they had above-average post players in Shaq and Gasol, above-average shooters at nearly every position, and excellent passers in Kobe, Fisher, Gasol, Shaq, etc.

Finally, some people say that the triangle died at the NBA level when Tex Winter (it's inventor) became too old to teach it. While I think this is pessimistic , Winter advised Phil Jackson on triangle implementation for nearly his entire career, and Winter was the undisputed triangle expert.

Suffice to say, most teams don't run the triangle because it takes time to learn it, and time is one thing most pro coaches don't have. If a coach doesn't wrack up easy wins because the players are still working thru the offense, he's in danger of getting fired.

Some additional reading:

Great review of the triangle's fundamentals: Triangle Offense, Coach's Clipboard Playbook

A solid article about the triangle back when SI and CNN were doing decent work: Tex Winter's famed triangle offense is out of favor in NBA

Written 3 Jan, 2014. 4,185 views. Asked to answer by Matt Brenner.
Upvote25
Downvote
Comment
More Answers Below. Related Questions
Why don't NBA offenses attempt double screens/picks more often?
How has Phil Jackson been able to successfully run the Triangle Offense for so many years?
2012-13 NBA Season: How would the Lakers have been different this year if Phil Jackson was their coach?
William Petroff
William Petroff
14 upvotes by Marc Bodnick, Jonathan Brill, Jason Lancaster, (more)
For starters:
As Dave Hogg and Jonathan Brill have already mentioned, it's not like the Triangle Offense took a bunch of schlubs and made them into a championship-caliber team; each one of Phil Jackson's teams were buoyed by two (eventual) Hall-of-Famers, surrounded with a host of quality role-players. So, we don't really know how much of it is the "system" and how much it is the players in the system. If the Atlanta Hawks go out and run the triangle and absolutely destroy everyone in the league, then maybe this becomes a different discussion, but I don't really see that happening.
The triangle is hard for players. It's an incredibly hard system to run because, most of the time, it relies on a player's ability to read the defense and react to it. This can leave a team trying to run the offense incredibly susceptible to failure if they don't have good five-man units that can run the thing. It's also predicated on a lot of off-ball movement and timing, which, given the way the game is played at the lower levels, are skill-sets that many players don't really develop to the degree they need to in order to effectively run the system.
Being a coach at the elite level is a challenging business and a position that always comes with its fair share of critics (of both the educated and uneducated variety). As such, coaches often choose the (perceived) "safe" path, meaning that the league is rife with mimicry. Part of the reason that nobody runs the triangle is because nobody runs the triangle; if someone did and it didn't work, then the coach is often "stupid" for pursuing a "bad strategy", whereas a coach can deflect some of that criticism when losing while utilizing a conventional approach. It's also a business where, by the time you reach that level, you're typically very ingrained in a particular way of doing things. Mike D'antoni runs a free-flowing, offensive-centric system because that's who he is and that's what he's developed over the years; after doing something for so long, a lot of times you don't really know how to do something else.
It's also a hard system to coach. Not in the sense that it's a difficult system to teach-- though I suspect it is --as much as it's a hard system for a coach to get used to using given how little control over the system is maintained on the sidelines during a game. The coach can't always be calling plays in from the sideline (since there really aren't many), so a coach cedes some level of control that he might otherwise have to his players and not being in control isn't always a pleasant prospect for a lot of coaches.

Dave Hogg, Sportswriter for more than 20 years
25 upvotes by Jonathan Brill, Sella Rafaeli, Aaron Ellis, (more)
Because the triangle offense isn't particularly revolutionary on its own. It is an offensive system that maximizes the contributions of a star wing (Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant), especially when they can play off another All-Star player (Scottie Pippen, Shaquille O'Neal or Pau Gasol). If you don't have two superstars, one of whom happens to be one of the greatest pure srers in NBA history, it's just another offense.

Written 3 Jan, 2014. 1,467 views. Asked to answer by Matt Brenner.
Upvote25
Downvote
Comment
Matt Johnson
Matt Johnson, Analyst, Project Runner, & Senior Mod... (more)
9 upvotes by Marc Bodnick, Jonathan Brill, Quora User, (more)
One note I'll add to the good answers you already see here is that it depends on the brains of the players in a way more offenses don't. Now to be clear, by that I don't actually mean "complexity".

Ask a player like Ron Artest who never seemed to get the scheme even after years, and sure he'll talk about it like it's complexity is insane:

“See, I can’t really understand the Triangle [offense],” he admits. “There’s 1,000 plays in the Triangle. It’s such a challenge. I get so frustrated about it, I have to call my psychiatrist. So I just stay in my one spot in the corner. If I leave my spot, I get yelled at. Phil’s gonna say, ‘What are you doing over there?!?’ So I just don’t move.”

Ron Artest doesn’t really get the triangle offense — or how to be vegan

But that's impossible to square with what you see when you watch Pau Gasol join the team. With Gasol it was like he already knew the offense without being taught anything. I don't care who you are, if the scheme has a lot of plays, it will take you a while to look that comfortable.

So how is it that the Artest can never learn it, but for Gasol it's actually easier than a typical scheme?

It's because the scheme operates more like a set of guiding preferences. Players have to read and react, and in this league full of insane bodies, there are a lot of players who can't do that.

Additionally, if you have one brilliant playmaker on the team, it would be a waste to use the Triangle. Why take the thinking away from your best thinker?

So, the obvious time to try to use something like the Triangle is when you've got a team full of really smart players but not floor general of outlier brilliance. It's not really a thing you can count on happening.

Of course this makes one ask the question:

Well then why did it work so well for Phil?

First and foremost because he had great talent to work with, which would have looked great no matter what (and when he didn't have that talent, it didn't look great).

I don't mean to demean Phil's coaching because I think he did a great job on a number of levels, but it's a huge mistake to think "11 rings can't be a coincidence".

Jackson wasn't seen as the greatest genius in the game when he was in Chicago. He was a solid coach with great talent to work with, and by the time he was done then, he had the kind of clout that only comes from winning titles.

Jackson was the right coach for the Lakers in no small part because he was someone who could come in and bend Shaq & Kobe's ears. Were he a new coach at the time - even if he behaved identically - it wouldn't have worked the same way at all.

What about the notion that it was the Triangle that made Jordan play "the right way"? Mythology. The best thing about the Jackson Bulls offense was its rebounding, which had very little to do with how Jordan changed his game to play in the Triangle, and everything to do with acquiring rebounding talent and letting them focus on that while the guys on the perimeter focused on the actual attack.

Of course one shouldn't take that to imply that Jackson was attempting to force some rigid system on his players and misguidedly attributing all his success to this system. With "the Triangle" Jordan became less ball dominant while not less impactful and Pippen was given more room to blossom, and also with "the Triangle" he molded a scheme that worked superbly around Shaq, and as mentioned with "the Triangle" Pau Gasol sometimes looks like an artist out there. It's not that it's not real, it's just that not some rigid object. It's a guiding principle whose focus can be adjusted.

Written 3 Jan, 2014. 863 views.
Upvote9
Downvote
Comment1
Jonathan Brill
Jonathan Brill, Writer Relations at Quora
10 upvotes by Sella Rafaeli, Justin Benson, Matt Brenner, (more)
Its not clear the triangle offense is that great. Its certainly flexible and given the talent Phil and his staff had to work with, he made great use of it. But we'll never know if another more standard offense wouldn't have been just as good a fit for two of the best players in NBA history and their very strong supporting casts. If anything, the triangle seemed to cause huge problems for the talent the Lakers had to work with in their years with Pau and Bynum.

Part of the problem is that looking at the championship teams only isn't necessarily a great indicator of the best offense. If you really wanted to look at offense, you'd want to control for the coach and the talent and measure points scored across all games during a season. When you think about how close the Spurs came to beating the Heat in the 2013 championship, you probably wouldn't want to draw many conclusive distinctions from the Heat's come from behind surprising victory.

Written 3 Jan, 2014. 697 views. Asked to answer by Matt Brenner.
Upvote10
Downvote
Comment
Ryan Struck
Ryan Struck
2 upvotes by Jonathan Brill and Matt Brenner.
I think people miss what the beauty of the Triangle Offense creates, before you even begin to run the many OPTIONS (not plays)

With the Ball on the WING, player in the POST, player in the CORNER for the sideline TRIANGLE. Player at the Point, creates another TRIANGLE between the WING, POST & POINT. In these 4 positions, all defenders are in DENIAL of their man, and therefore the WING with the ball, is able to see where to go with the Ball - All players are ONE pass away to receive the ball.

The fifth player, is in the most important position - The WEAK WING/POST (He is holding space on the weakside). In the WEAKSIDE POST, his defender potentially could play HELP defense, however if he plays HELP, this creates an easy passing lane when the WEAKSIDE POST flashes to the STRONG ELBOW. If his defender plays him tight and goes to the WING, this creates more driving lanes, as he should be in HELP when his player is on the WING. In the WEAKSIDE POST, this creates the 3rd TRIANGLE, between the STRONGSIDE & WEAKSIDE POST players and the player at the POINT.

With every player One on One with their man, the ball is passed to the OPEN man. Depending on where that pass goes, determines the actions of the players.

For example I teach an OPTION, where the Ball goes into the Post. Now the CORNER speed cuts and clears to opposite corner, WING goes over POST & screens WEAK POST. The TRIANGLE can be reset on the other side and another set of options are presented, depending upon where the next pass goes.

OPTIONS for the Cut from CORNER & WING, they could Split cut, WING goes low, CORNER goes over and he becomes the screener. WING could set what Tex Winter calls a 'Rebound Screen' (Down screen) CORNER goes over, WING rolls. What ever option the players choose, depends on how the Defense plays them on that possession.

The beauty about those cuts I've just explained. As soon as the ball hits the POST, how many defenders do you think will turn the head and look at the ball. When that defender does, he is beat on a cut.

Remember the Pistons double teaming Jordan, in the TRIANGLE you can't double team, you get punished.

Currently I teach the TRIANGLE offense to Under 11's, 13's, 15's, 17's & Seniors. As I have been with my Under 13's for a few years now, and have taught them how to read the defense, they are starting to put the pieces of the Offense together.

Written 7 Jan. 228 views.
Upvote2
Downvote
Comment
Quora User
Quora User, We don't know what the internet is fo... (more)
6 upvotes by Jonathan Brill, Marc Bodnick, Inigo Sarmiento, (more)
Defense wins championships. One offense is as good as another, as long as it gets the ball in the hands of your best players. The fact that Jordan, Pippen, James, Wade, and Bryant were/are all NBA defensive players matters more than their offense ever did.

Nix you can't run this system without the right talent and coach, and it's been documented to death. Which is why it baffles the hell out of me as to why are we trying to force it on a bunch of weak ass talent. Players don't want to think that hard when playing a game, and if the avg player take 2 yrs to learn it, whats going to happen next yr, and why did phil trade his best players after 2 months because they couldn't get it.

So fisher is going to look like a bad coach if he doesn't have top tier talent..

It's being implemented because thats all Fisher knows. At this point I dont think think Phil is triangle married considering some of the trade targets he was reportedly looking at.

Fisher was in the NBA 17 yrs, 5 in which he played in the TRIANGLE, I find it hard to believe that's all he knows, but since the system doesn't involve almost no play calling, he was put here as a puppet. Even when phil coach, he had the luxury of having the best players in the history of the game, he very rarely bark orders, and rarely call timeouts when teams would go on a run against them. I mostly saw phil whistle orders and point.

Close to half of Fishers career he wasnt even a starter, so yeah, it's quite fair to say he only knows the triangle.

Oh c'mon! You think that he did not understand the offense that was being run in OKC because he was not starting?

What you understand and what you know arent the same. Understanding is for your benefit, knowing it is to be able to teach to others. Fisher cant push the tempo to save his life, this the same dude that stated he would develop an offense to suit his players. Yet he went right back to only thing he knows...the triangle.

I don't buy that he does not know other offenses though I can't really speak for what he knows ... to hard to judge that at this point (for me).

I stated numerous times that I am not a fan of him or the hire.

Kerr is a better coaching candidate because he was a MUCH smarter player and probably has a MUCH better understanding of the game.

mreinman wrote:I agree about fisher not being that good of a player. I hated his bb IQ and his shot selection.

I stated numerous times that I am not a fan of him or the hire.

Kerr is a better coaching candidate because he was a MUCH smarter player and probably has a MUCH better understanding of the game.

Kerr never really did anything smart as a player, nor did he say anything particularly intelligent as an announcer. He's looking like a good coach though, but it's hard to say how much of that is due to players- it'll be interesting to see his adjustments in the playoffs

smackeddog wrote:

knickscity wrote:kerr was a better candidate because he has more experience in NBA basketball. He was coached by Phil and Pop, so he could pick up multiple aspects of the game and also by being an executive who actually did run a team and a broadcaster helped as well. Fisher is a puppet, there's a reason why he clearly gets fluttered when someone says it about him.....only hit dogs bark.

He didn't want to come here so who cares about his 'experience' not coaching

smackeddog wrote:

knickscity wrote:I'd suspect the same one's who give Kerr no credit for GS's success are the same who dont blame Fisher at all for our failures. Both are in the positions they are in to a reason degree due to coaching.

The bottom line is we have no idea how much it's the coach and how much it's the players and since we can't swap them and find out, all we can do is guess.

yet if you polled all the NBA execs who they though is the better coach, I would assume that Kerr would get 100% of the votes but yes. That is just an assumption.

smackeddog wrote:

mreinman wrote:

smackeddog wrote:

mreinman wrote:I agree about fisher not being that good of a player. I hated his bb IQ and his shot selection.

I stated numerous times that I am not a fan of him or the hire.

Kerr is a better coaching candidate because he was a MUCH smarter player and probably has a MUCH better understanding of the game.

Kerr never really did anything smart as a player, nor did he say anything particularly intelligent as an announcer. He's looking like a good coach though, but it's hard to say how much of that is due to players- it'll be interesting to see his adjustments in the playoffs

C'mon smack! seriously?

Yup, seriously- what smart things did he do as a player that Fisher didn't? I remember him hitting open shots, that's about it. Same with his commentary - I used to find him bland, he usually just stated the obvious - did you honestly listen to him and be amazed at his insight?

Yes. I listen to him and found him very enlightening and insightful. Oh ... and witty and charming.

And he did hit lots of open shots but mainly he took smart open shots and did not force many terrible shots like Fisher did. I thought that Fisher's shot selection was quite questionable.

smackeddog wrote:

mreinman wrote:I agree about fisher not being that good of a player. I hated his bb IQ and his shot selection.

I stated numerous times that I am not a fan of him or the hire.

Kerr is a better coaching candidate because he was a MUCH smarter player and probably has a MUCH better understanding of the game.

Kerr never really did anything smart as a player, nor did he say anything particularly intelligent as an announcer. He's looking like a good coach though, but it's hard to say how much of that is due to players- it'll be interesting to see his adjustments in the playoffs

Their are plenty of sub par players turn great coaches, JVG and SVG didn't even play in the NBA, but they were assistants for a good period of time. Kerr has been analyzing games for quite some time, he's also has front office experience. What exactly does Fisher have on his resume, he's certainly not a HOF player even he played 3 more yrs.

He was put here to run the triangle with a bunch of non triangle players, whats so obvious is that he doesn't have the experience or the creativity to do anything else, so thats why he looks like a damn puppet, and hasn't made any note worthy adjustments this entire season.

With todays players, the current direction of the NBA, and a in experience coach,I just don't think you can put together a sqaud thats going to grasp this system and run with it. We may get 10 or 15 more wins with better talent, but it's seems so far fetch to put together the exact type of role players needed.

How many skill full big man are in the league like shaq, and pau, how many very good wing defenders like pip, MJ and kobe will be available (and they aren't that many to begin with) it's just crazy to think this triangle thing will have any success with today's players mind set. Your just going to keep getting frustrated and flipping the roster.

I say scrap the triangle, fire fisher and bring in a head coach with expereince and his own system or something close to the triangle.