It’s that old Zen again
Tex Winter is back in Oregon now, after having spent weeks in Kansas following a late April stroke.
Craig Hodges, who played for Winter at Long Beach State and with the Chicago Bulls and who now coaches with him as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers staff, keeps in close touch with Winter’s family.
The 87-year-old Winter, who developed the Lakers’ famed triangle offense, still struggles with leg movement and trying to speak, Hodges said, but he’s pretty sure Winter is watching the Lakers in the playoffs on television.
If so, you have to be worried about Winter, who has a tendency toward frustration with the Lakers’ play and vociferous criticism of their performances.
Even though the team played extremely well in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets and followed that up with superb play against the Orlando Magic in Game 1 of the NBA championship series, Winter wouldn’t have allowed himself to be very pleased.
“He would have found something to yell at us about,” said the Lakers Luke Walton with a smile.
Winter has always been that sort of perfectionist.
He has teamed with Lakers head coach Phil Jackson over the past two decades to dominate as pro basketball’s odd couple. When they met as assistant coaches on the Chicago Bulls coaching staff in the late 1980s, Winter was the quirky genius of basketball, a superb college coach who was never quite able to sell his ideas to pro players, and Jackson was the strange duck outsider, lacking a deep technical understanding of the sport.
Sure Jackson had won an NBA championship as a sub for the 1973 New York Knicks and a Continental Basketball Association title as a coach of the Albany Patroons. But his coaching contemporaries in the CBA liked to joke behind his back that Jackson had trouble understanding a simple flex offense.
Together, though, Winter and Jackson would make for a masterful team. Even then, in his late sixties, Winter was a revolutionary, so fiery that Bulls head coach Doug Collins had to ban him from practice. The Bulls, however, soon fired Collins, promoted Jackson, and the triangle conspiracy was off and running.
Jackson was the student, with Winter teaching him over the years during film sessions, organizing his practices, explaining all the details. Jackson soaked it all up, and then provided that special touch of genius that Winter lacked — a masterful ability at team dynamics and group building.
Winter often said the triangle would never have gone far in the NBA without Jackson’s ability to elevate it to relevance and sell it to the players, especially superstars such as Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.
Within two years, they helped guide Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the Bulls to their first title. They would win five more over the course of the 1990s and would eventually come close to Winter’s ideal of the perfect offensive state.
That would be what Winter called “the automatics,” a state where the coaches didn’t have to call plays because the players were so well versed in the triangle offense they could simply read the defense and make the cuts and passes to counteract it.
With Jordan, Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Ron Harper and a host of smart role players, the Bulls came to inhabit that rare state for their last three championships, from 1996-98. They spread the floor, ran their “automatics,” and left the rest of the league dazed and confused.
These elevated states of play and Jackson’s Eastern and mystical leanings helped cast them as purveyors of a “Zen” basketball. But then the Bulls broke up in a contentious storm, and Jackson/Winter soon found their way to L.A.
Surprise, surprise, they won three more championships from 2000-2002 with Shaquille O’Neal and Bryant, but those Lakers teams did so mostly with a mix of Shaq’s blunt force trauma and just enough triangle offense to keep opponents off balance. Then for the second time, one of Jackson’s championship teams came apart in a fury of spite and ego.
O’Neal was traded, and Jackson was fired, then rehired in 2005. He, Winter, and the fine Lakers staff have spent the ensuing seasons rebuilding that triangle mind among their players.
Why has it taken so long for Jackson’s latest Lakers teams to reach that higher level? “It’s a different generation of players,” explained Hodges, who played on Winter’s college team at Long Beach State, where his college players had the practice time to learn full execution of the offense. In the pro game with its heavy schedule and many distractions, it simply takes longer to teach and learn it.
After falling apart in the 2008 championship series against the Boston Celtics, the Lakers are back at it, but now for the first time in more than a decade, one of Jackson’s teams has reached that special level. You almost have to use a word that has become trivial, but the Lakers are playing Zen basketball, in a special state with Winter’s “automatics.”
That special something has just recently clicked with the Lakers after years of work. As Walton explained, the players themselves realized it in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals when they soared to a different level and destroyed the Denver Nuggets.
And then came Game 1 of the league championship series against the Orlando Magic Thursday night, and the same great tide lifted the Lakers again and carried them off to that special place. Yes, the “great tide” is the play of Kobe Bryant, who scored 40 points against Orlando. But it’s also much more than that. It’s how he and the Lakers did it.
He scored them largely in the broad, discombobulating context of the triangle offense. The Lakers went to their “automatics,” and simply took what the defense gave them. From the 25-point final margin, it’s easy to deduce that Orlando was quite charitable. Afterward, the Magic players and coaches had the look that Bulls opponents had in the late 1990s.
As veteran Magic assistant Brendan Malone suggested before Game 1, Orlando would counter the triangle by slowing the flow of Lakers cutting to the basket.
“We have to keep a body on the cutters,” he explained.
It made great sense, especially against a young team that couldn’t use all of the “automatics” of the triangle offense. But as Walton explained, this Lakers team has been growing in its relationship with the complicated offense, and now they’re able to make the many reads the offense required. They’re now able to employ all of the automatics.
“It’s been a constant change,” Walton explained, “but toward the end of that Denver series, that’s when we really took a step to the next level.”
The players, he said, have come “to know that pretty much every time, if we make the right reads, we’re gonna get a good shot.”
Being on the floor in those Zen moments makes for a rare and wonderful level of basketball, Walton observed. “If you have the ball, you’re looking around and seeing people move and cut. It’s a great way to play basketball.”
It’s a matter the Lakers going to their first option and waiting for the defense to counter it, then turning to their automatics, Walton explained. “The thing about our automatics, we’re running them because the defense is taking something away from us. There’s no way you can take away our first option and our automatics at the same time. The automatics are pressure-release situations. So if you’re gonna take away something, we read it and go to something else. We normally have the court spread out and people cutting all the time.
“This offense is meant to not even call any plays, just move the ball, and depending on how the defense is guarding you, you make the appropriate pass. Off of every pass, there’s another five options to go from,” Walton added. “We got a group of guys out there right now where it’s starting to click for us. We’re constantly moving and getting open shots.”
It makes basketball very Zen and very fun, agreed teammate Sasha Vujacic. “When we were still learning about the offense, we didn’t know what to do with pressure.”
Winter devised the triangle to take a defense’s pressure and use it against them, which is what the Lakers are now doing to their opponents. In Jackson, the perfectionist Winter found a tremendously patient and wonderful teacher to explain the offense over long periods of time to those pro players willing and eager to learn it.
“The triangle is a two-guard front, so it’s a little bit different and difficult to learn,” Vujacic explained. “But the coaching staff has explained it step by step, and it has become easier. To learn triangle takes a while. Once you finally learn it, it goes smoothly. There are just so many options.”
It takes special players to fit the system, Walton suggested. “They’ve done a great job of putting this team together.”
No player in the world understands the offense better than Bryant, a Winter disciple who joins the coaching staff in teaching it to the team. “It helps everybody else,” Vujacic explained. “When we play as a team we are very hard to beat. That’s when Kobe takes over. He knows when to take shots and when to pass. He’s just the best there is in the game.”
Bryant’s uncommon work ethic has been a big factor in driving this learning experience with the automatics, as assistant coach Brian Shaw, himself a veteran of the offense, explained. “He’s done a good job of balancing when to be aggressive and when to be a facilitator.”
Even though Bryant took 34 shots and scored 40 points in Game 1 against the Magic, there wasn’t a sense among his teammates that he had attempted to go it alone. Bryant was simply reading and taking what the Magic defense was giving.
What the defense gave was a lot of opportunity for Bryant to run the side screen and roll, which he used to burn Orlando time and again. Having coached against Winter for years, Malone likes to argue that the screen and roll really isn’t the triangle, but Winter has long been adamant that screen and roll action is just one of the options his players have in making their reads. “Kobe killed us with it,” Malone said.
Does this mean that the Magic players and staff have no hope, that whatever Orlando does, the Lakers will simply read the situation and take what’s left?
Not necessarily. There’s always the human element. Sometimes the Lakers lose the patience that Zen requires.
“It’s just in some games we don’t do it,” Walton said, pausing a moment to contemplate that mystery. “Some games we try to force it in (against the defensive pressure). That’s when we struggle.”
Those have always been the moments that left Winter fussing about the overbearing elements of Bryant’s or Jordan’s competitive nature.
“When we’re willing to accept to what’s open, it works well,” Walton explained. “If they jam cutters, we kick it to the other side and counter back in, and now they’re playing at a deficit.”
That’s the brilliance of Winter’s triangle offense, that it creates an imbalance, then swings the ball to the weak side, where a Bryant or Jordan can play behind the defense and then take advantage.
As they work to win Jackson’s tenth title, the Lakers are quite mindful of Winter’s condition, and that may factor into their determination to reach that special level with the automatics. As you might expect, they don’t articulate such notions. They’re better left unsaid.
Jackson, though, has been hurt deeply by Winter’s condition, according to close associates. It’s not something the coach is going to talk about publicly, and he addresses it only subtly with his team. “He’s constantly teaching us and telling us things his teacher has told him,” Walton said of Jackson. “We’re all thinking about Tex, and we miss him.”
javaman Said,
June 6, 2009 @ 11:59 pm
Great article Roland. Our prayers and good wishes to Tex.
RobTaipei Said,
June 7, 2009 @ 2:20 am
Apropros the triangle and team play, this on LeBron and the Cavs shortcomings. It’s long …
While nothing special, I played, and found basketball to be appealing because of the combination of agility, finesse, and strength together with the mental aspect of strategy. In Confucian societies, learning is based on rote, and this includes basketball, where repeating the fundamental motions is a prerequisite to playing; that is perhaps the basis of what I am believing. But I note that European (including Turkey’s Okur and Turkoglu) and South American players have sound fundamental mechanics. So maybe it has nothing to do with Confucianism, but rather looking at basketball as a disciplined skill rather than a game for fun.
Alas, LeBron apparently is still in the fun mode, as he has all the other prerequisites in abundance, and he neglects the fundamentals. If a pure shooter like Dirk Nowitzki still consults a coach, the mechanically pure Steve Nash continually works on his shooting mechanics, and the naturally talented Kobe has improved his already good mechanics, why can’t LeBron? And why shouldn’t he listen to the quintessential pure shooter Rick Barry, and why should Barry have been castigated for a wrongly perceived aspersion?
As for the strategy part, I am sure that NBA coaches know all the strategies, it is a matter of which of them are emphasized. When you have a superstar like Kobe or LeBron, it is of course reasonable to sometimes just let them go. The bad old NBA days often saw the dreaded “clear-out” letting the star go one-on-one; it was ugly, a personalized showing off a superior player at the expense of a supposedly inferior defender. At the end of Cleveland-Orlando Game 5, LeBron went one-on-one and was successful; at the end of Game 6, he was unsuccessful, missing a plethora of jumpers and essentially losing the game for the Cavs. The lessons are these: (1) Letting stars go sometimes works, so it is tempting for coaches, but sometimes also it doesn’t work, so don’t be tempted, for it violates the basic tenets of team sport – what Larry Brown means by “playing the right way” – move the ball by passing (around the perimeter, out-in and in-out), find the open man, get closer to the basket (but more recently sometimes go outside for a 3-point dagger). (2) Use more plays for LeBron lessening his workload – what Rick Adelman meant upon arrival at Houston that he didn’t want Tracy and Yao to work so hard for their shots – and they won’t be so tired at the end. (3) Repetitive practice of good mechanics helps when you are tired (hopefully the elbow won’t fly out so far and stay under the ball).
Remember when you played a two-man game – give-and-go, pick-and-roll – the idea was that “if they did this, we would do that, and if they did that, we would do this”, and the feeling of complete satisfaction you felt when something worked. That is the essence of the mental strategic part of basketball which makes it so appealing. Standing around watching the superstar go to work is no fun at all (I believe even for the superstar) and if this impedes success rather than promoting it, well …. Think about early Michael Jordan and his 40 point games, but never able to beat the Pistons until Phil Jackson taught him the triangle with Pippen, maybe the PG, and whoever the center might be. Think about early Kobe, helter-skeltering it out on the perimeter, rushing in 1-on-3, and losing the ball when he tried to do too much; Laker success was incumbent on the low-post domination by the brutish Shaquille O’Neal, not on Kobe’s ill-disciplined play.
Kobe now has Pau Gasol, whom I daresay taught him to believe in team play; their two-man give-and-go and P/R are things of beauty, to say nothing of the triangle, which I confess I do not sufficiently understand to comment on its effectiveness in regard to Kobe, but which I assume involves Derek Fisher (that’s why he has minutes) with Pau and Kobe, and the ball movement often extending to the 3-point shooter. That team play success of course requires skill (Kobe could never have done it with Kwame Brown, case closed), but even without skilled players (Bill Wennington, Luc Longley, et al.) team play will work and increase the chances of success. Think about a bunch of stiffs playing one-on-one against a TEAM like the Pistons of Larry Brown and Flip Saunders (and what happened when the quintessential sole creator Allen Iverson came on board).
My coach admonished us to “not piddle around out there on the perimeter” (translation), what he meant was don’t dribble around looking for something to do, just what pre-Gasol Kobe used to do and what LeBron seems to be doing now. Pass the ball and get to your place on the floor, if it doesn’t work out, go back and do it again. If he told me to just give the ball to our star and get out of the way, I would obey, but deep down I wouldn’t like it (even if we win because we have a good star). And I am only a mediocre player, think about an NBA player, a star all his life, and what he would be thinking/feeling.
Now LeBron has such a seemingly engaging personality and such overwhelming physical gifts, and he does sometimes appear to sincerely try to pass to the open man, that his teammates probably can accept his one-on-one (many) play. But the point is that the Cavaliers would be even more successful if they ran more team-oriented plays with him as the focal point rather than just letting him go (piddling).
Even the supremely self-centered Kobe Bryant came to realize the value of team play, and the influence of Phil Jackson cannot be overemphasized, but then success is the final persuader. LeBron appears to have a less selfish, better character than Kobe; he could make any comparisons meaningless by dint of better shooting mechanics and more team play (from the coach), and of course he would benefit from his own Boswell (a Pippen or Gasol, begging a discussion on who … Bigs: Chris Bosh, Yao Ming, Tyson Chandler, Marc Gasol (that would be interesting), Al Jefferson, Greg Oden, … ? Complementaries: Lamar couldn’t Pippen for Kobe, who can for LeBron?).
In sum, Rick Barry is right about mechanics and the Cavaliers’ plays, the Pistons proved team play is effective, Michael and Kobe learned both lessons from Phil Jackson and had success. Here’s hoping that LeBron and Mike Brown can do the same. Or does LeBron just need a complement for success?
RobTaipei
Holla Bolla Said,
June 7, 2009 @ 9:14 am
Ron,
You try so hard to balance knowledge with hate, but you are a “poor man’s” Bill Simmons. Your Back-handed compliments are so see-through. With Kob-haters, it’s all the same: They ignore the hard work, the knowledge of the game, the willingness to learn, the jordanesque competitive drive, because you take it for granted. Instead you haters focus on the mamba scowl being “phoney”..what do you want him to do? stick out his tongue so you can say he such a Jordan wannabe? You probable love KG…but his scarface scowls on the bench are so intense..gimme a break. Haters always get exposed by exposing themselves.
Let’s get one thing straight: Mamba is not MJ and will never be. But Mamba’s desire to be as great as MJ makes him as good as he is..he works on his game Ron. Guys like TMAC have similar talent, but Mamba’s game has evolved to a much higher level. Maybe time for you to respect it instead of making garbage remaks like Pau made Kobe more of a team player…maybe cause he had Kwame & Smush.
BallerBlogger.com Said,
June 7, 2009 @ 2:34 pm
The Lakers Are Playing Zen Basketball…
Roland Lazenby, blogging for HoopsHype.com, explains:
Winter often said the triangle would never have gone far in the NBA without Jackson’s ability to elevate it to relevance and sell it to the players, especially superstars such as Michael Jordan and …
mewanaplay2 Said,
June 7, 2009 @ 3:35 pm
Well said Holla Bolla. Kobe deserves a lot of credit because of his work ethic.some people still want to hold him accountable for his past mistakes and indescretions. I applaude him for his dedication and love of
the game of basketball.Kobe Bryant can be a role model for my kids
anytime! GO LAKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!
RobTaipei Said,
June 8, 2009 @ 9:58 am
Kobe almost lost it for the Lakers by reverting to his old 1-on-3 at the end of regulation; he was not fouled but he tried to save face by gesturing that he was fouled. Lamar was open in the corner …
Kobe redeemed himself in overtime by passing to Gasol; I guess he can learn.
Rafer was his old self. The Lakers have played the Rockets a sufficient number of times to know that Fisher can double down on Howard, or up on Rashard and leave Rafer open … and hope he takes the 3-pointer, which he did, to the Magic’s detriment.
The Magic would have been better off with Anthony Johnson in there.
RobTaipei
Holla Bolla Said,
June 8, 2009 @ 10:44 am
Ron,
How bout crediting Hedo with great D..Kob drove right by him, but Hedo recovered… How bout crediting a superstar for hitting important shots (tie game or take the lead) despite an admittedly subpar performance? Isn’t that what the great ones do? Asking for foul..let’s see, name another NBA player or 300 that do that.
You crack me up: Lamar was open in the corner? Trevor was also open for 3..maybe they would have hit the game winner, maybe not. But he is the closer. Lamar had the ball on the possession and passed it to Kob..everyone wanted Kob to take the shot. If Kob didn’t take it, he would have gotten critcized too. Even haters like you would prefer someone else to take it..your hearts wouldn’t beat as fast.
justinmeilers Said,
June 8, 2009 @ 12:21 pm
Best coaching duo ever. Phil Jackson and Tex have never been honored by the league. They just kept winning and winning. Other teams are too undisciplined to run the triangle. You need someone as smart and regimented as Kobe to dictate to younger teammates.
Oh to that idiot RobTaipei - What about Hedo knocking the ball out of bounds and the ref claiming it was off Kobe? That would have been the game if we got the ball back up by 3 with a minute to play. I guess you forgot about that. I would rather have Kobe take over and force Hedo to make that block again. It will happen 1 out of 10 times. Plus I watched it on TIVO and Kobe was fouled on the body by Howard
noyb Said,
June 8, 2009 @ 5:21 pm
When all is said and done, “they” will say at least one thing about Tex Winter: “He knew Basketball.”
Dj Quest Said,
June 8, 2009 @ 6:24 pm
I like Holla Bolla,
For once someone who is on a message baord and is not SLAMMING Kobe for being a hard worker. Rob… (sigh) killing me softly with the back-handed comments…
I wish people would just give Kobe his due.. Period, no if’s, and’s or buts’. Just give Kobe the respect he has earned.
RobTaipei Said,
June 9, 2009 @ 8:10 am
Of course Kobe is a great player, better than LeBron. I just want him to be perfect, which he can be, by playing the team game. He did do that most of the game, but I believe reverted to the old Kobe at the end. When it is 3-on-1, you are supposed to pass.
Holla Bolla Said,
June 9, 2009 @ 3:21 pm
Ron,
See Game 3 vs Denver, Q4–LA would not be here if he passed during those crucial moments..hitting mamba shots. That game has yet to get to cred it deserves.
javaman Said,
June 10, 2009 @ 10:25 am
Pity for those who cower and try to PLAY it safe by conforming to societal measures. Trancendent greatness can only be achieved by stepping out of the standard convention. I’ll take a maverick who has consumately dedicated a substantial amount of his concious life, working to perfect his craft to meet his standard, than a dabbler who is satisfied with being the richest and the most popular player (MVP?) in the world. Failure is scary and can be humiliating, but dare to be great!
NBA Finals News Roundup — Part Three « nbaroundtable Said,
June 11, 2009 @ 7:54 pm
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