Tex Winter says that a team must pay tribute to the basketball gods in order to succeed, his metaphor to inspire players to practice solid fundamentals and teamwork. According to the 1958 National Coach of the Year, the team that executes at both ends of floor the best will be rewarded. Fortunately, I was coaching a team that was able to benefit from this today, directly and indirectly. Directly because poise and control resulted in quality scoring chances and defensive pressure produced turnovers and indirectly because fate assessed the opponent with a bizarre technical foul when a player removed their …
The Gifts of the Triangle
I’ve been reading a lot of my Tex Winter books lately. The Triple Post Offense – also known as the ubiquitous “Triangle” – never stops giving. It is not an offense that can be run in every situation but it provides some good teaching points to break down freelance and early offense principles into easy to learn pieces. Most interestingly, if one were to employ elements of the Triple Post set, they could hide a lack of size in the post and create a wide variety of scoring chances with an undersized line-up.