Barangay Ginebra San Miguel coach Tim Cone said he has revived the triangle offense for his squad to allow center Greg Slaughter to have a more flawless return to the squad.
The triangle offense thrives on teams with big men who can post up, and Cone, who slightly abandoned that philosophy when he arrived to Ginebra, thought that that would give more opportunities to Slaughter, who came back after being sidelined for a year due to a knee injury.
“We envisioned the triangle a little bit more because the triangle is such a great post offense. I think that’s the reason why everybody says it’s our cake, it’s an old offense, it’s all about spread and being guard-oriented, shooting treys. Our big men should be rim protectors and screeners,” Cone said after Ginebra’s win over Meralco on Sunday.
“Our bigs aren’t like that. Our bigs need the ball. They need to get in a position down low and have an opportunity to score. That’s what the triangle is good at – to work at our post guys. We want to wait at the triangle a little bit because we didn’t have Greg and we didn’t have that post presence.
“But now we have them. The triangle is really better for us at this point out there on the floor. But we’re still adjusting.”
Against the Bolts, Slaughter scored 19 points and eight rebounds–a testament to how Cone’s adjustment boded well for his star center.
But reverting to the triangle also means adjustmen for players who aren’t familiar with it yet. Cone hopes that the likes of Justin Brownlee and Kevin Ferrer will get used to it soon.
“Actually, Justin (Brownlee) never really ran the triangle before since we had them. We did it for him to really dwell into it deeply and the same goes for a lot of new guys. Kevin (Ferrer) has been with Gilas for so long. He didn’t have a chance to practice, so we didn’t let him play today. But we expect him to be a big force on the triangle for us,” Cone said.
