As the Knicks were getting some extra shots up after practice, Phil Jackson and Jeff Hornacek sat on the scorer's table talking. The new coach said the Knicks president wasn't telling him to run the triangle more, and he's somewhat surprised he hasn't.
Hornacek admitted he hasn't run it much in the Knicks' first two preseason games, and that he's not sure how much he will run it. Hornacek said Jackson has given him triangle pointers here and there but for the most part, he's been "hands off."
When Jackson fired Derek Fisher last season, he cited a lack of communication as one of the reasons and made it clear he wanted him to run the triangle more.
"Phil's been great," Hornacek said after Sunday's practice at Madison Square Garden. "He's not trying to take over and make us do anything. He's given us the leeway.
"There are some things that we do that aren't the triangle stuff. Our early stuff that quite honestly we thought he would say, 'Let's not do that.' Or, 'Let's not do that option.' But he hasn't said that at all."
Hornacek is trying to get the Knicks to run more, play faster and utilize pick-and-rolls because Derrick Rose, Carmelo Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis excel in it. He said he'll use the triangle out of timeouts or after dead balls, and in the half-court if their early offense isn't working.
But the triangle offense remains unpopular in NBA circles outside of Jackson's world.
Recently, ESPN analyst and former point guard Chauncey Billups said he didn't think the Knicks are a playoff team, adding "they have a very bad system _ the triangle." Anthony, Billups' former teammate in Denver, has gone on record saying he doesn't like saying the word.
Hornacek acknowledged it's not a popular offense in today's NBA, and he plans to blend "triangle aspects" with his faster-paced scheme.
"If it slows you down, I think that's where most guys are probably coming from," Hornacek said. "You end up being a slow-down team and never get easy buckets, and you're running that half-court set all the time _ first of all, guys don't like to run it. 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. So we're not running it every time. We're mixing it in here and there.
"It'll be game to game, and it's great that we keep working on it because if we get to a point where our early offense isn't very good some nights, we can slow it down and run that. Or vice versa, our early offense is killing a team, we don't necessarily have to go to it."
