Phil Jackson’s "State of the Knicks" address Monday night can be summed up in a few words: Settle in for a long winter over at the Garden.
Losers of five of their first seven games, the Knicks are flunking Triangle 101. New to the offense that Jackson employed in Chicago and Los Angeles, Derek Fisher’s players have mostly failed to grasp the read-and-react system.
How do we know that, other than by the most obvious sign, the woeful record? Jackson’s first major media briefing since training camp came before the Knicks were held to 85 points by the Hawks. By night’s end, they had fallen into last place in the league in scoring, at 91.1 points per game. They have yet to hit the century mark in a game.
As Jackson put it, the players “are quite a ways" from mastering the offense.
Even with one of the NBA’s premier scorers in Carmelo Anthony, this hasn’t been a total surprise. Fisher, a first-time coach, is attempting to get selfish, shoot-first gunners, starting with Anthony, J.R. Smith and Tim Hardaway Jr. to embrace a methodical, unselfish, team-oriented system.
Another major problem: Starting point guard, Jose Calderon, who was supposed to be a leader and stabilizing force at the offensive end, has yet to take the court due to a calf injury.
"Clearly, they're still learning the triangle,’" NBA commissioner Adam Silver told reporters in Brooklyn before the Knicks were thrashed by the Nets last week. “I still don't understand it. But they're learning it. But that's what the game is all about. You have a new coach; you have a new president of basketball operations in Phil Jackson; you have a couple new players on the team."
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What Silver said made all the sense in the world. He’s not the only one who doesn’t understand it. Most people look at the system that Jackson used to win a record 11 NBA titles and think it was Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant who primarily made the Triangle go.
But for some reason, Jackson took umbrage with Silver.
“I wasn’t so humored by the commissioner actually jumping in on top of that, too,” he told reporters. “He doesn’t need to get in on that. There’s enough focus on the triangle. It’s not anything. It’s a system. It’s simple basketball. Just play the game. So we’re over the triangle. Let’s get to business and play it the right way.”
Then Jackson detailed what he sees as the “right way" --covered within his "seven principles" of sound offense: “Did we get penetration? Or were we going around in circles? Did we get the ball inside in the penetration? How good is our spacing on the court? Are we organized in the spacing, allowing us to get our four teammates involved?’’
Check the schedule. The Knicks have a lot of winnable games over the next eight days, including Wednesday’s home contest against the Orlando Magic, another offensively-challenged team that has eclipsed the 100-point mark just once. So if you’re a Knicks fan, you might actually get some positive responses to Jackson’s questions in the coming days.
Who knows, with upcoming games against the Jazz, Nuggets, Bucks, Timberwolves and Sixers, all with losing records, Anthony might start showing signs that he grasps the system and can be a factor in it. So far, he’s been a wreck, shooting 32 percent in five losses. Of all the Knicks, he’s got to change his game the most. Everyone knew that the moment he re-signed last summer for $124 million. No longer is it acceptable for the team’s top player to dominate the ball and bring the offense to a dead stop.
Jackson used his session with reporters to remind Anthony of that very fact.
At one point, Jackson said, “So the ball’s got to move and you have to move it. ... It’s breaking a habit, and sometimes that’s not so easy. I think that’s what Melo’s going to improve in his game as he gets that rhythm and that knowledge of, yeah, 'I’m starting to be aggressive and take a shot or activate this offense in another way.'"
Another time, Jackson brought up his old Chicago teams with Jordan, and the Lakers with Bryant, to drive home the point that Anthony is in a whole new world.
“There were times in the course of the night when either Michael or Kobe, our primary scorers, would be operating with (the mindset) of 'I'm going to score every time I touch the ball.' You can't do that in an offense. The defense can cue up on what you're doing. I've talked to Carmelo a little bit about that. The team looks to you to score, and there are times where you're going to have to pick it up and do that. But for the most part the opportunities are there and you have to be inside that system and play within it.’’
Anthony is inside the system now and it’s the Triangle, all right. It just happens to be the Bermuda variety.
Longtime New York columnist Mitch Lawrence continues to write about pro basketball, as he’s done for the last 21 years. His columns for NBCNewYork.com on the Knicks, Brooklyn Nets and the NBA, along with other major sports, will appear twice weekly. Follow him on Twitter @Mitch _ Lawrence.
