Anyone who has watched the New York Knicks this season knows their biggest issues are on defense. On Tuesday, the team spent most of its practice working on defending the pick-and-roll. The team also assigned assistant Kurt Rambis to clean up the defense.
Starting with Wednesday’s game against the Brooklyn Nets (7 p.m. ET, ESPN), we’ll see how effective those changes are.
But there’s also reason to pay attention to the other end of the floor. Knicks president Phil Jackson has recently been bothered by the team's offense, specifically with the amount that it runs the triangle, according to sources.
So just how often are the Knicks actually running the triangle?
Short answer: not a lot.
One NBA scout who watched a recent game said he saw the Knicks run the triangle a handful of times. Players say they are only running it out of dead-ball and free throw situations.
In an effort to get further clarification, we turned to Steve Fitzgerald, who has coached the triangle offense for more than 20 years at the high school level. We asked Fitzgerald to watch the Knicks' Nov. 4 victory over the Chicago Bulls and analyze the offense, particularly how often the triangle was implemented.
Here’s what he found:
"[The Knicks] had a total of 100 possessions, out of which 75 were half-court situations. In those 75 possessions, [New York] ran pure triangle twice. The first one with 5 minutes, 57 seconds left in the first quarter -- [ESPN analyst] Hubie Brown actually pointed out in the broadcast that it was the first time they had shown us any part of the Triangle. They ran a strong-side post entry to [Carmelo Anthony] and then executed a screen-and-roll initiated by the weak side forward, [Joakim] Noah."
"The only other pure triangle possession came in the first possession of the fourth quarter. They ran pinch post with a fake handoff with weak-side curl/slip action."
"There were two other times where they set up in triangle alignment but did not follow through with the action. Both morphed into screen-and-roll [isolation] with little movement after the initial pass."
According to Fitzgerald, New York's base offense features several calls to get specific players touches in their comfort areas, including isolation plays for Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis as well as high screens for Derrick Rose.
It's only six games into the season, but coach Jeff Hornacek's offense doesn't have the look of Jackson's famous triangle. But early returns -- the Knicks are currently 14th league-wide in offensive efficiency after finishing 26th last season -- show the more-pressing issue still lies on the other end of the floor.