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Thu, Feb 14th 2008, 11:08

Farmar and Gasol Sound off on Triangle Offense

There is a great read over at SportsHubLA that talks about how Jordan and Pau have been adjusting to Phil Jackson’s triangle offense. From the article,

“Tex Winter has had high praise for Jordan Farmar this season, although the Lakers consultant like many other observers had noted Farmar’s performances had lost their sheen in January.

Then came the infamous nine-game, 15-day Lakers road trip, and Farmar started hitting big shots again and playing the role of a push guard off the bench.

“He had dropped off there for a while,” Winter said. “He’s getting better, finding his way.”

It’s not easy, Farmar admitted in a recent conversation.

Adjusting to the triangle offense remains a challenge, especially for a young point guard. In other offenses, the point is charged with doing lots of things, most of them involving being aggressive.

In the triangle, less becomes more, although it’s hard for a young guard to see it that way.

“Yeah, that’s the toughest thing for me,” Farmar replied when asked about having to do less as a point guard in the triangle. “I’m still struggling with it every day.”

So much of the transition to playing point in the triangle is attitude, and despite any struggles adjusting, it’s clear Farmar has a 24-carat attitude.

Phil Jackson has “won nine championships with this,” Farmar points out. “And we have a chance to be really good. And I want to be here, at home in this system, and playing for this organization. So you have to continue to grow from day to day and just, just wait it out.”

Waiting it out is no short task. He’s well into his second season and he’s still not ready to pin his progress on a better understanding of the offense.

“It’s just comfort level in general,” he said of the improvements that have observers around the league talking about his potential. “We’ve changed a lot of things with the triangle. This year we’re really basic as to what we’re doing.”

That’s been necessary, he said, because “we keep getting new additions. D.J. (Mbenga), Pau (Gasol). People get hurt, traded. We got Trevor (Ariza) at midseason. So we’re still real basic.”

Winter acknowledged that the team has shied away from the complex elements of the offense. In the past, when Phil Jackson’s Chicago Bulls teams grew in their understanding of the offense, they tended to leave opponents in another class, particularly in the playoffs. The Lakers, too, did that during their championship years with Jackson when they had so many veteran role players who embraced the offense.

Farmar points out that the new additions mean that reaching that special feeling with the offense will take more patience, more time together. Right now, the Lakers are using the basics of the offense to improve one step at a time with their new teammates.

“It’s simple; it’s just good basketball,” Farmar explained. “You play the right way. It’s pretty simple basketball. Pau (Gasol) really does a great job fitting in. He knows how to play the right way. As for me, it’s just getting comfortable, just getting experience.”

Farmar isn’t quite yet ready to declare that less is more.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Um… I think that just being here, being in this situation, is good. Feeling that I can be successful in that system, and that I can modify my game and improve myself, in order to benefit the team as a whole, I’m just looking forward to doing that throughout my career.”

He’s also aware that the team has to improve defensively, just as he’s aware that Winter is calling for the Lakers to rely on their centers and power forwards to help defend against penetrating guards. Winter doesn’t want the team to get help from the wings, because it leaves open shooters that have routinely hurt the Lakers by making big shots.

Winter says the Lakers are like the rest of the teams around the NBA. “They like to pack it in to stop that penetration,” he said.

There’s the obvious reason for that, Farmar responds. “That’s what you want to do in basketball anyway, you want to make people beat you from the outside. You don’t want people all in your paint. That’s what opposing teams do. They have guys who can get in there. That’s not what you want. You don’t want people in your paint all day. Then it forces people to come in to help, and they get even better shots.”

Farmar says he and his teammates understand what Winter is saying, but it also means adjustment. If the big man helps defend when a quick guard breaks down the defense, then another teammate from the weak side has to rotate to “help the helper. But still somebody has to come off the weak side and help cover the big man. It’s a collective team effort every possession down.

“You have to expand and contract as a unit, getting other people’s back and really playing hard and rotating hard,” he said. “If we do that, we’ll be ok.”

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