National Basketball Association

The Golden State Warriors also have a Triangle Offense problem

Published Mar. 3, 2017 3:03 p.m. ET

Andrew Lynch

Derrick Rose might as well have been speaking on behalf of Stephen Curry when he bemoaned Phil Jackson's beloved Triangle offense earlier this week — because the New York Knicks aren't the only NBA team with a triangle problem.

If you tuned in for the Golden State Warriors' first game without Kevin Durant on Thursday night, you saw a team ignoring its most potent weapon at the expense of coach Steve Kerr's system. Rather than have Curry run countless pick-and-rolls with Draymond Green, which is easily the Warriors' single most effective set, Kerr fell back on the triangle-based, hybrid, motion offense he holds dear.

Only when the game was on the line did Golden State finally switch gears — and by then, it was too late for Curry to get red-hot. And while the rest of the Warriors did Kerr no favors, there's little doubt his stubborn insistence on off-ball offense sank Golden State on Thursday.

Short of a radical change over the next four weeks, we should probably get used to such sub-optimal play from the once-and-future champions. Way back in 2014, Kerr explained how he envisioned the triangle unleashing Curry's full potential (via Real GM):

Kerr said Curry was the key to the offense in lessening his responsibility as a ballhandler and decision-maker.

“That’s the biggest change we made,” Kerr said, “was just getting the ball out of Steph’s hands and having him run off screens. ... I wanted to make the game easier for him and I wanted to utilize his tremendous skills to leverage openings for other guys, and to compromise the defense by having to chase Steph around and having to pay so much attention to him.”