Phil Jackson is tutoring Knicks on how to play (and not talk about) the triangle offense
On the opening night of the NBA’s season, Derrick Rose got right to work. In the minutes following his new team’s loss to the defending champions in Cleveland, the New York Knick point guard went aboveboard as soon as the recorders would let him when asked about his comfort level while working in New York’s (not really) triangle offense:
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“I want pick-and-roll every time down.”
[…]
“You see with Cleveland, they run pick-and-roll the entire game and [create] mismatches and closeouts, and them driving the ball and making someone else commit and pitching out for a three. That’s something we have to keep doing.”
[…]
“In the triangle sometimes, you’re going to the corner,” Rose said. “As the point guard, that’s tough sometimes going all the way to the corner and kind of waiting to see what they’re going to do on the initial side of the triangle. You have to wait for the ball to come back to you.”
Carmelo Anthony, the team’s franchise player, defended his new teammate:
“We want guys to feel comfortable with who they are,” Anthony said. “We don’t want to try to change anybody’s game. If Derrick feels comfortable being up there in high pick-and-roll, that’s his game, you can’t take him away from that. You want to utilize guys’ strengths. That’s who he is, that’s who he’s always been. We want to rely on that. We don’t want to take that away.”
In a league that was already out of words to use in describing San Antonio’s opening night blowout win over Golden State, the news clicked. Rose won the tongue-in-cheek “Worst of the Week” designation from NBA TV’s The Starters for waiting a whole 29:35 for hopping on new coach Jeff Hornacek’s hybrid mixture of president Phil Jackson’s beloved triangle offense, and Hornacek’s sometimes-brilliantly successful semi-motion offense that he utilized in Phoenix.
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Well, Phil Jackson is going to be damned if some pissant point guard is going to lay waste to his triangle on record. From the New York Daily News’ Frank Isola:
It reached the point that, according to one player, Knicks president Phil Jackson briefly met with the team either Thursday or Friday to discuss some of the comments they made to the media.
Not finished, Jackson moved up one spot in the backcourt to give newly-signed shooting guard Courtney Lee a bit of a tutorial on the triangle offense. And, as you’d expect, Lee came out beaming following a discussion with the man who gave the 31-year old a four-year, $48 million deal last July:
“It’s dope. The man got multiple rings and that’s what we’re trying to chase. He got a lot of knowledge and information, so it’s always good to pick his brain because you don’t know all the answers. There’s always somebody out there who knows more than you. And he’s one of those guys.”
[…]
“It helps a lot especially since this is my first year that I’ve learned the triangle,” Lee said. “It helps a lot. What you’ve seen was him over there talking to me, asking where I’m comfortable at in situations and them him drawing up on the board, this is how you can run it, this way and this way. So it definitely helps as far as getting out here, listening to the coach, putting us in position in practices and then having him, who pretty much is the Godfather of the Triangle.”
The New York Daily News’ Stefan Bondy went on from there:
Behind the scenes, however, Jackson has advised players and occasionally been involved in coaches meetings, according to Jeff Hornacek. The latter is something that never really materialized with Derek Fisher, despite Jackson’s desire to have more input.
“There are some things we’ve covered. But for the most part it’s little things here and there. It’s not where he’s been in all of (the meetings and film sessions). We’re in our meetings talking and he pops in and listens and if there’s something that’s on his mind, he’ll bring it up,” Hornacek said. “And that’s good. It’s good for all of us to … the more knowledge out there the better.”
From the New York Post’s Marc Berman:
Jackson will pop into coach’s meetings occasionally but doesn’t stay long, according to Hornacek, who had no familiarity coaching the triangle before being hired in May. He claims to appreciate the Zen Master sitting down with players such as Lee.
“He’ll occasionally talk to a guy,’’ Hornacek said. “I think talking to Courtney just to help reiterate where shots might come from. We don’t have all the reads in there. I thought today when we were doing the dummy offense of it — guys were doing some different things that created stuff.”
“Usually it takes 20 to 25 games, I would say, just to see where we’re at,” Rose said. “Then after that, we should have an identity.”
This … we should expect this.
Phil Jackson is about halfway through the five-year contract he signed with the New York Knicks back in 2014. Despite making some immediate win-now moves as team prez – most notably signing Carmelo Anthony through his mid-30s during his first offseason as personnel chief – New York hasn’t made much of a dent in the standings.
Jackson’s attempt at alternating a rebuilding process (hiring a rookie coach in Derek Fisher his first year, drafting a teenaged Kristaps Porzingis in 2015) and a middling approach (seeking veteran help in the form of Robin Lopez, Arron Afflalo, Anthony, and now Rose, Lee and center Joakim Noah) has not worked thus far. The team lost out on yet another lottery pick last June in the five-year wake of the 2011 Carmelo Anthony deal, and Hornacek was brought into the fold to lead this team to respectability after a fractured 49-win run in Jackson’s first two seasons.
He’s also in place to listen to Jackson, in a regular season that isn’t even a week old. This is the sort of dynamic that, in Jackson’s eyes, fits. Phil could never press too hard with Fisher (his former player) or interim coach Kurt Rambis (his good buddy). Jeff Hornacek acts as a classic familiar-but-not-too-familiar employee to Jackson’s employer, allowing for Phil to wander and occasionally offer guidance to both coach and player alike.
Of course, Phil Jackson is still the same person who (over the course of several books he either wrote, or acted as a go-to anonymous source for) repeatedly chafed at former Chicago Bulls general manager Jerry Krause being anywhere near the Chicago locker room (right down to mocking the overweight Krause for using one of the team’s many available toilets occasionally before games) or practice court during Jackson’s time as employee to Krause’s employer.
This time around, it’s justified. For reasons that Phil Jackson will no doubt explain in his next book.
Whenever his latest chapter, this time framed in New York while running the Knicks, concludes.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
