If you’re looking for a silver lining amid the New York Knicks’ crummy season, head coach Jeff Hornacek kind of has one. You know, maybe.
Following practice on Saturday, Hornacek made it clear team president Phil Jackson has not asked him to run the triangle all the time, per ESPN.com’s Ian Begley:
Jeff Hornacek says Phil Jackson hasn’t forced him to run the triangle exclusively. “It’s not like he’s saying I want you to run this all 48 minutes,” Hornacek said after practice Saturday. “He understands that part of the game (you’re) able to run off that and the majority of the game it’s not set plays. It’s learning how to play the game, making reads, there’s picks, there’s random pick-and-rolls. But 30 or 40 percent of the time there’s a dead ball or slow game you got to get into a set.”
So that’s…something.
If you watch the Knicks, you’ll see they aren’t running the triangle full-time. There’s more of it in recent weeks, but not a ton. Even when the Knicks take too long getting into their half-court sets—so, always—it’s not always because they’re being methodical, being deliberate, about entering Jackson’s pet construct.
In a way, then, this isn’t the silver lining. Because if the triangle isn’t to blame for the Knicks’ continued struggles, it means that the team in general just isn’t very good.
