Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek admits players ‘don’t like to run’ Phil Jackson’s triangle offense

BY FRANK ISOLA NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Sunday, October 9, 2016, 4:50 PM

Jeff Hornacek is intent on updating Phil Jackson's antiquated triangle offense and even admitted on Sunday what has been painfully obvious for the past two seasons.

"Guys," Hornacek said, "don't like to run it."

Hornacek addressed the elephant in the room after he was asked to respond to a comment ESPN analyst and former Knicks point guard Chauncey Billups made last week when Billups said that the Knicks have "a very bad system, the triangle."

Hornacek said when teams are in their halfcourt sets they all run a variation of the triangle. The difference is that most NBA teams get into their offense quicker and that running the triangle exclusively will slow the pace.

"I think that's where most people are coming from," Hornacek said. "If you end up being a slowdown team and never end up getting easy buckets and you're running that halfcourt set all the time… guys, first of all, don't like to run it.

"But secondly, it makes it very difficult to get easy buckets early in the offense and I think in today's game those early buckets are nice to get. We're not running it every time. We're mixing it here and there. Hopefully, for us it's a good thing we can do when we need to execute a play on a dead ball that we have something to go to."

The implication is that Hornacek is fine running the triangle following time outs and dead balls but not after made baskets. Hornacek's plan makes sense on several levels. For starters, playing a quicker pace early in the offense fits the Knicks’ personnel, especially point guard Derrick Rose. The team, including Carmelo Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis, also prefer to play that way.

Phil Jackson has guided Hornacek during the new coach’s first Knicks training camp.
And by keeping some version of the triangle, Hornacek can placate Jackson, who only sees the NBA through triangle-shaped glasses.

Of course, Derek Fisher was slowly phasing out the triangle offense, which cost him his job. Jackson promoted Kurt Rambis and the Knicks went back to being a triangle team, and Rambis lost the locker room almost immediately.

Hornacek is Jackson's fourth coach in four seasons, and the Knicks president may be starting to understand that he can't coach the team from the 10th row.

"He's kinda been hands-off," Hornacek said following Sunday's practice at The Garden. "He gives suggestions here and there if he sees something. And he says 'clean this up, this particular action.' So it's good. It's another coach out there.

"He's run it for years and years. Really, he's not coming in there saying, ‘change it to this or change it to that.’ So it's good additional information."

Jackson and Hornacek sat on the scorer's table after Sunday's practice and spoke for nearly 10 minutes. Afterwards, Hornacek admitted that he thought his boss would reject any attempts to tweak the offense.

Hornacek will heavily rely on Derrick Rose to lead the offense.

"Phil's been great," Hornacek added. "He's not trying to take over and make us do anything. He's giving us the leeway. There are some things that we do that aren't the triangle stuff; our early stuff that quite honestly we probably thought he'd say 'let's not do that, or let's not do this option.' But he hasn't said that at all.

"He's just trying to give us hints on when we're in the halfcourt sets. Just how to really execute it. It's great help."

Completely delusional. You're NEVER going to learn the Triangle PART TIME . . .

It's also the way any team INCLUDING a Triangle team should play! You push the ball and look for easy early offense and if it's not there you go into your side Triangle set. Also since you won't always have quick scoring opportunities they can run Triangle. Finding a balance is going to be the key but I think it's possible since this won't be the first time a coach has done this. Pop, Thibs and others have successfully done it.

Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL:

https://twitter.com/NYPost_Berman/status/785598839306784773

knicks1248 wrote:

crzymdups wrote:Hornacek now saying he meant "guys like Billups" don't like the Triangle. Knicks players do.

Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL:

https://twitter.com/NYPost_Berman/status/785598839306784773

That seem like some (PR MSG rep) told him to back track on his comment..No player in the league is inerrsted in playing half court basketball.

I feel like it might have been Phil

dk7th wrote:

EnySpree wrote:Basketball is basketball. The triangle is a play. Yes they can run the triangle when they want or need to. Of course guys don't like it. Nobody likes to run plays. It's the nba and it's organized basketball. It's not the Rucker or the Drew League. Players would rather play that way. No defense just freelancing. We can't play that way. We can for stints but you need to be organized. At times we need to be even more organized. Blah blah blah

there's freelancing as in (1)going one on three, there's freelancing as in (2)driving into the lane without a plan, and there's freelancing where (3)a player is a playmaker.

the triangle is meant to get players to be playmakers, and it only works when you have players who are moving and cutting without the ball that gives players with the ball an opportunity to be playmakers.

HOWEVER

when you have players who freelance in the manner of (1) and (2) then they are torpedoing the triangle offense by definition. so it becomes a vicious cycle. hornacek has to get these culprits (our point guards) to walk the line.

This team is still running a LOT of Triangle, but they aren't really sharp at it yet. That will still take some time. What you do see is some nice stuff like this that Horny has them doing.