Knicks head coach Jeff Hornacek drew guffaws from the whole hep basketball world last week when he announced that the Knicks would be reverting back to the much-derided Triangle offense. His explanation: They need the Triangle (coached by Kurt Rambis) to improve their defense (also coached by Kurt Rambis).
Let us say, for the sake of argument, that this all makes sense — that the Knicks need to run the Triangle to get back on defense. Perhaps we saw the result on Monday night — a 92-91 loss to the Toronto Raptors, in which one of the best defensive performances of the season was offset by the kind of crappy second-half offense we came to expect from last season’s Triangle-happy squad.