In listening to Debbi Antonelli give color to the Indiana game, I was intrigued by what she said about the triangle and the "pinch" dimensions of Stanford's offense. I've now done some reading and watching to understand it and will try to explain it here, so that as we watch future games, like Cal Poly, we can look for it.
The Triangle offense, developed by Tex Winter and Phil Jackson, as a whole has gone out of fashion even though it dominated basketball in the 90s and 2000s. Shortened shot clocks and the emphasis on three point shooting are probably responsible for its decline.
If you que up the Indiana game, available on ESPN replay, you can hear and see Antonelli's explanations of the element of the Triangle that Tara is running today. Her comments are with 38 seconds left in the 1st quarter and with 4:20 left in the 2nd quarter.
In the Triangle, play always goes through the "pinch post." What is that? It is a post player who waits at the elbow of the free throw line to receive the initiating pass. Once the post receives the pass at that position, the post (Brink usually, but I saw Agara also, not sure if I saw Iriafen) reads the defense and has several different plays that are designed to attack different weaknesses, and the "pinch post" needs to be good at quickly deciding which is the most appropriate play. In a sense, then, the post is doing the work that is normally done by the point guard.
To make this work, the post player absolutely has to have all the fundamental skills. She has to be able to put the ball on the floor, pivot, and take it to the rim. Brink did that several times against Indiana, pivoting and scoring. Not all big posts are nimble enough to regularly drive from a standing stop 10 feet away from the basket and finish. Betts, for example, may be a superb post down low, but was never cut out to be the pinch post.
And it is critical that the post also have the ability to face up from the elbow and hit the mid range jumper. If the driving lanes are clogged or cut off, the post needs to consistently make that jumper which amounts to a free throw. And Brink has made 50 free throws in a row.
There are endless options from the pinch post. One common one is a give-and-go where the post hands it back to the guard that just passed it to her so the guard can attack the basket instead. Not sure if I saw that against Indiana. More rarely the pinch post can pass it to a guard (like Jump) on a back door cut, which makes it look a little more like the Princeton. Or the pinch post can run a two man game. Or the pinch post can step out a few steps and take a three point shot, which Brink attempted three times.
I noticed a couple of different formations that we were using. Most commonly, Brink would be at the pinch post and the other four players would all be "out" on the three point line. This is designed to pull the opposing players out of the paint to guard the line, thus leaving Brink room to maneuver if she puts it on the floor and attacks the basket. It also makes it possible for any of the four to break to the basket and receive a pass from Brink.
I also noticed that once or twice we had 2 pinch posts--each standing on a different elbow (corner.) Not sure what we run out of that formation, I will have to watch it more carefully. I don't think I saw a post setting up down low on the block at the same time as the pinch post was setting up at the elbow. That would be the classic High/Low formation. Maybe the fact that both Iriafen and Brink can drive from ten feet and quickly get to the block makes the pinch-pinch formation effective.
One advantage of always running the action through the pinch post is that the offense should work pretty well no matter whether the defense is playing man or zone. If man, then Brink can drive to the basket. But the elbow is also the weak spot in most zones, and if you have a player who can reliably knock down shots from that spot, it is a zone buster.
So that is what I have been able to learn. Some of you who have played or coached can probably correct or expand on my feeble efforts, but I'm really interested to understand our scheme--the same way I have always been fascinated by know what kind of offensive scheme a football team deploys.
The Triangle offense, developed by Tex Winter and Phil Jackson, as a whole has gone out of fashion even though it dominated basketball in the 90s and 2000s. Shortened shot clocks and the emphasis on three point shooting are probably responsible for its decline.
If you que up the Indiana game, available on ESPN replay, you can hear and see Antonelli's explanations of the element of the Triangle that Tara is running today. Her comments are with 38 seconds left in the 1st quarter and with 4:20 left in the 2nd quarter.
In the Triangle, play always goes through the "pinch post." What is that? It is a post player who waits at the elbow of the free throw line to receive the initiating pass. Once the post receives the pass at that position, the post (Brink usually, but I saw Agara also, not sure if I saw Iriafen) reads the defense and has several different plays that are designed to attack different weaknesses, and the "pinch post" needs to be good at quickly deciding which is the most appropriate play. In a sense, then, the post is doing the work that is normally done by the point guard.
To make this work, the post player absolutely has to have all the fundamental skills. She has to be able to put the ball on the floor, pivot, and take it to the rim. Brink did that several times against Indiana, pivoting and scoring. Not all big posts are nimble enough to regularly drive from a standing stop 10 feet away from the basket and finish. Betts, for example, may be a superb post down low, but was never cut out to be the pinch post.
And it is critical that the post also have the ability to face up from the elbow and hit the mid range jumper. If the driving lanes are clogged or cut off, the post needs to consistently make that jumper which amounts to a free throw. And Brink has made 50 free throws in a row.
There are endless options from the pinch post. One common one is a give-and-go where the post hands it back to the guard that just passed it to her so the guard can attack the basket instead. Not sure if I saw that against Indiana. More rarely the pinch post can pass it to a guard (like Jump) on a back door cut, which makes it look a little more like the Princeton. Or the pinch post can run a two man game. Or the pinch post can step out a few steps and take a three point shot, which Brink attempted three times.
I noticed a couple of different formations that we were using. Most commonly, Brink would be at the pinch post and the other four players would all be "out" on the three point line. This is designed to pull the opposing players out of the paint to guard the line, thus leaving Brink room to maneuver if she puts it on the floor and attacks the basket. It also makes it possible for any of the four to break to the basket and receive a pass from Brink.
I also noticed that once or twice we had 2 pinch posts--each standing on a different elbow (corner.) Not sure what we run out of that formation, I will have to watch it more carefully. I don't think I saw a post setting up down low on the block at the same time as the pinch post was setting up at the elbow. That would be the classic High/Low formation. Maybe the fact that both Iriafen and Brink can drive from ten feet and quickly get to the block makes the pinch-pinch formation effective.
One advantage of always running the action through the pinch post is that the offense should work pretty well no matter whether the defense is playing man or zone. If man, then Brink can drive to the basket. But the elbow is also the weak spot in most zones, and if you have a player who can reliably knock down shots from that spot, it is a zone buster.
So that is what I have been able to learn. Some of you who have played or coached can probably correct or expand on my feeble efforts, but I'm really interested to understand our scheme--the same way I have always been fascinated by know what kind of offensive scheme a football team deploys.