Monday, December 15, 2008

Player movement with a purpose

Any time Tex Winter talks, I listen. After all, when a coach has been on the sidelines for 60 years, he has a lot of basketball knowledge.

[In Coach Winter's case, that knowledge dates back to at least 1947 when he took over as head coach at Marquette.]

When asked how well the Lakers are executing his Triangle Offense this season, Coach Winter replied, "They're doing OK. It's just a question of staying with the offense, staying with the principle of the offense. Sometimes we get away from it, give up on it too soon."

According to an article in today's LA Times, "What bothers Winter the most is when the Lakers stop sharing the basketball, when they don't make the extra pass, when players decide to play more one on one rather than the team concept. The concept of the triangle offense is ball and player movement with a purpose, to pass the basketball to the first open man, to cut hard."

"The ball stops, often times when the ball is in Kobe's hand," Winter said about Kobe Bryant. "That's fine, as long as it's an isolation situation that he can take advantage of. But the other players have to play without that basketball and stay spaced and make themselves available."