Brian Shaw on Kobe and the Pecking Order

With Game 4 of the NBA finals set to start in about 2 hours I found this interesting article on CBS Sports via Coach Musselman's Twitter. Lakers Assistant Brian Shaw talking about the offensive progressions they go through and where Kobe fits into that equation. I'll try to contextualize this in the triangle offense but first here is Shaw's analysis:

We tell our guys to start the offense away from him. Use this side of the court, see your options over here; if nothing's there, reverse it to him and now the shot clock's down and let him do his thing. But when he's out there on the floor and he's doing his little signals asking for the ball, there's kind of a pecking order that happens out there on the court. They don't want to piss him off, and they want to please the coaching staff as well. But he's the closest one to them on the floor. So a lot of times they'll force the ball into him with three people around him instead of making the right play.

In the triangle, the ball is supposed to be entered into the strong-side post either through a direct pass from the point or from the wing. The point then shuffles to the corner forming the famed triangle. From there, the point, wing, and post read the defense, the point can cut baseline with the wing shuffling down, or the point and wing can screen and replace, etc... If nobody is open, the post himself can back down and make a move if it is advantageous to do so. The 2 players on the weak-side, usually play a 2-man game (screen and replace, cut and fill, etc...) The post can also elect to pass to this weak side. This is where Kobe comes in according to Shaw, on the weak side.


Now, in comparing Kobe and Michael Jordan in the triangle offense. It's been a long time since I've watched a lot of MJ film, but as I recall MJ was mostly playing strong side, and they had Steve Kerr or Scottie Pippen play on the weak side.


It definitely requires more research but it is interesting to see the differences between how both are used within the triangle offense. Of course, the other point worth mentioning is that the Lakers run less of the triangle (plays called from the bench) than the Bulls did who used the triangle offense almost exclusively. We certainly do see a lot more purposeful Kobe clearouts than we did MJ clearouts back in the day.