The function of basketball is penetration

As he's done from time to time this season, DAL coach Rick Carlisle "hatched a surprise" recently against the Lakers -- a zone defense that "caused confusion" and "bog[ged] down the Lakers offense."

"We hadn't seen a zone for a long time and it came out of nowhere," Vujacic said Monday. "For 60 games teams played man-to-man against us. No team played zone."

LA won the game, but the zone worked for time, as "the Lakers offense went stagnant."

"When the zone got sprung on [the second unit], they had that hesitation and ended up shooting nine 3-pointers that didn't go in," Coach Phil Jackson said. "That was a loss of focus because they lost the function of basketball, which is penetration."

To prepare for the next time they face a zone, "the Lakers spent the majority of Monday's two-hour practice working on the principles of their zone offense. The focus was on the best ways to attack a zone, which include moving the basketball to make the zone shift, making sharp cuts without the ball, and maintaining proper spacing."

Why spacing matters

Was flipping through Ron Higgins' 2006 book "Tales from the Memphis Grizzlies Hardwood" last night and came across a good passage about Hubie Brown's return to coaching at the age of 69.

What MEM players remembered most about Coach Brown was his intensity, demand for perfection, and incredible attention to detail:

"At our first practice, no one knew how to take him," [Lorenzen] Wright recalled. "He was yelling, he was cursing. He was screaming, 'Get to this spot, get to that spot, get to this spot.' Nobody knew the reason those first few practices. Then, we started playing games. You get to those spots. You have open shots."

Griz swingman Shane Battier loved Brown's attention to detail.

"He always talked about spacing," Battier said. "On certain plays, he wanted us three feet from the free throw line -- not four feet, not two feet. If we got it wrong, he'd stop practice and correct that one foot."

His team started to believe, even guard Jason Williams, whose lousy shot selection, wild passing, and penchant for playing soft defense got him benched in Sacramento, then traded.

He and Brown came to a quick understanding.

"I don't care if a player has got a style, as long as he makes no turnovers," Brown said. "As soon as you turn the ball [over], then you've got to be accountable."

Williams responded with the lowest assist-to-turnover ratio of his career.

A player with an innate understanding of spatial relationships

Read where 12-year NBA veteran Tim Duncan recently played in his 1000th NBA game for the Spurs.

But as this writer describes, because of Duncan's fly-below-the-radar persona and focus on fundamentals, there's not much new to say about the former Wake Forest star.

"It's like figuring out something new to say about the Grand Canyon, the Mississippi River or the Sphinx (at least when the great stone critter isn't whining over a referee's whistle). As in: It's, uh, still there.. And, y'know, still great."

MIN coach Kevin McHale contends that, among the NBA's current big men, Duncan is "by far the best.'' And much of his success, argues McHale, has to do with Duncan's basketball IQ.

"He's smart. He doesn't run around. No wasted energy. Things I'm trying to get our guys to do -- basketball's a game of read-and-react. Especially with young guys, they want to 'run' the offense. But the offense doesn't score -- the read inside the offense does. Things happen, Tim just stands there and goes [McHale very slowly looks left, very slowly looks right]. Then he moves into the open spot.

Believe it or not, that's how everybody played. You didn't run on top of each other. You gave everybody space. He's different because, right now, for whatever reason -- either how the game is taught or how the young guys play in AAU or whatever -- it's, 'We're going to go as fast as we can, run around as fast as we possibly can.'

He just takes his time. Let the defense make mistakes.''

Duncan, a 10-time All-Star and two-time league MVP, is the first to admit that he's not a flashy, super-athletic player who's going to make SportsCenter highlights very often.

"I'm not a quick guy. I've never been the most athletic guy. I'm not as quick, I don't jump as high, all that stuff. So [it has taken] a conscious decision about playing harder, positioning better, getting to spots, getting your feet set, giving yourself another half second to react to something, things like that. If I can slow it down, take my time and go to my own strengths, I can neutralize a lot of what people are able to do against me. You try to make people react to you more than you react to people. When you can do that, you're the one in control. You know what's going on and everyone else has to figure it out on the fly. I try to base my game around that. That's how I've always played.''

According to Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, Duncan has "an innate understanding of the game and spatial relationships, what teammates are going to do and what's needed at a certain time. Never in a hurry. Always a patient, skillful player who understands the situation. He's a throwback."

The Triangle Offense

Good story in the Indianapolis paper this morning about the Lakers' Triangle offense.

"The offense, orchestrated by [Phil] Jackson and longtime assistant coach Tex Winter, is not an illusion. When executed properly, three players form a triangle on the strong side of the court. Jackson's triangle... is unpredictable because it is based on constant movement and then reading the defense... The Lakers run it between 70 and 75 percent of the time when they're not fastbreaking."

As described in the article, "the beauty is that any player can be at any point of any triangle. Players, roles and positions on the court are interchangeable. The point guard doesn't have to initiate the play or penetration. Jackson's goal is to space the court (he prefers players 18 to 20 feet apart) to maximize individual matchups. When the defense adjusts, that creates other openings."

According to Pacers coach Jim O'Brien, whose team plays the Lakers tonight:

"It's just different triangles that in a natural setup has a wing, corner, post triangle. It's kind of an overload situation. It's a perfectly spaced offense where you cannot get your normal weak-side defense loaded up on guarding or helping. When I think of triangle offense, they always have people perfectly spaced. To me, it seems that with that spacing you can always draw some triangles if you stop anybody at the same time."

According to one Pacers player, defending the Triangle is difficult because "it really keeps you honest. It doesn't allow you to gamble because they have a lot of backdoor options. That makes you stay honest in the passing lane, which means you can't really disrupt their offense a whole lot."

To run the Triangle, "it takes players who have multidimensional games. They have to be good passers, shooters, drivers and be able to move well without the ball. The Lakers currently have that with Bryant, Gasol and Lamar Odom."

Says Coach O'Brien:

"Phil and Tex have been running that offense no matter who they've had. Whether it was Shaq and Kobe or Jordan and Pippen, they just run it. It's a good offense no matter who is on the court for you. When they go to the bench, the Lakers are very efficient offensively when you have Kobe or Gasol in the game. They don't seem to miss many strides from their execution of their triangle offense. It's a great offense from spacing and from movement standpoint."