s3231 wrote:

nixluva wrote:

holfresh wrote:I don't understand "forget the triangle" talk, it only an option..Phil hired a coach with no experience with assistants specifically to run the triangle..He is trading players for nothing in return that so called don't fit the triangle...Now it's only an option??..Well can we get a real coach in here then and tell him the triangle is an option??

Phil isn't saying forget the Triangle as in they're abandoning it! He was saying that the media focused on it way too much. The Triangle is just a system of playing ball. Isola in particular is saying that Phil and the Knicks made out that it was all about the Triangle when Phil said any system could work but he liked the Triangle. Phil like's that the Triangle leads to unselfishness. He also said to Fish from the start that he is free to tweak the offense as he wishes and make it his own but that he wants the base to be the Triangle. Besides he wants the team to push the ball and look for early offense and only settle into the Triangle if nothing is there.

Seems to me that not only the Media but many fans are not even close to understanding what Phil has been talking about. No matter how many times I post the information it just gets ignored and people hear what they want to hear.

Cleamons - “Some coaches, they would irritate or disappoint me with some of their comments,” Cleamons, an assistant coach with the Milwaukee Bucks, said before a recent game against the Knicks. “We’ve never said that was the only way to play, or the best way to play. It’s just a way to play.”

Cleamons noted: “No matter what your system is, that’s got to be the first hurdle. So what’s happened with the triangle, because we won so much, it’s taken on a life of its own. But Tex always said that it’s basically a junior high school offense, based on the simple principle that any one of three positions — a guard, forward or center — can be your post player.

“At any time you can pass the ball to any of your four teammates, and if the defense takes any of those passes away, there’s a logical sequential action that takes place after that. If they take away all four passes, then you have an opportunity to drive the ball to the basket.”

Jackson has lamented how the N.B.A. game relies too heavily on the point guard to create off the dribble or a high screen. He espouses the near-rhythmic movement of five players to connect stars to their teammates.

Scott Williams, a center/forward who played for Jackson’s Bulls in the early 1990s and is an assistant coach for Milwaukee, credited the triangle with benefiting less-talented players.

“I had opportunities to have the basketball, make passes, make cuts, set picks,” he said. “It wasn’t just being parked out on an island like I was for the years after that when I went to Philly — all right, you two guys stand over here in the parking lot and when the shot goes up, try to get in there and give us an offensive rebound.”

Yet Mike Fratello, the television analyst who coached against Jackson during tenures in Atlanta, Cleveland and Memphis, said that many teams, including San Antonio, had incorporated triangle concepts related to positional strategy into their offenses. They just hate to admit it.

“Without question, there are pieces of it being used along with the other stuff they are running,” Fratello said.

Cleamons added: “You got a lot of teams now that run what they call elbow. Elbow is one of our strong-side actions. They’re all given new names, but many of these things are part of the triangle.”

Exactly, nix nailed it. Phil was just explaining how the triangle had been overhyped by the media and that at the end of the day, it is a basic structured offense to give the team options if the fastbreak isn't there or if there aren't any other advantageous opportunities. Let me clarify that even though he did say "forget the triangle" at one point, he still emphasized the importance of finding players that fit the "system." In no way was Phil saying we should abandon the triangle last night but he was just saying everyone has placed too much emphasis on it.