New York Knicks: Jeff Hornacek’s Triangle

Jeff Hornacek’s second NBA coaching assignment is with the New York Knicks. How will Hornacek and his coaching style play out with Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks?

With a look back towards Jeff Hornacek‘s playing days, coaching career and analysis of his coaching style, we look to try and break down the New York Knicks for the 2016-17 NBA season.

On June 2, former Phoenix Suns head coach Jeff Hornacek was named as the new head coach for the New York Knicks. The hire raised some eyebrows around the league as it was believed Knicks president Phil Jackson was angling to give the role to interim head coach Kurt Rambis.

However, this is not the first time Jackson has used the media to throw misdirection at opposing teams or executives and the media.

Even as recently as April, Jackson told the media he wouldn’t abandon the triangle and would only hire someone with whom he had a prior personal relationship.

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Enter Jeff Hornacek, who comes onboard having little prior rapport with Jackson. Hornacek started his NBA head coaching career with the Phoenix Suns, the team that drafted him back in 1986.

He carved out a very respectable NBA career over the ensuing 14 years including some memorable NBA Finals battles with Phil Jackson’s Chicago Bulls teams of the late ’90s as a member of the Utah Jazz who retired his No.14 jersey.

Hornacek was a career 40 percent shooter from 3-point range, including an NBA record 8 consecutive 3-pointers in a regular-season game against the Seattle SuperSonics.

Hornacek was dealt to Philadelphia 76ers as part of the Charles Barkley trade prior to the 1992-93 season, where he assumed point guard duties before being dealt mid-season to the Utah Jazz.

Hornacek completed the Jazz backcourt alongside Hall of Fame point guard John Stockton. Due to ongoing knee issues, Hornacek retired in 2000.

Hornacek accepted an assistant coach role with the Jazz for the 2007-08 season to work primarily as a shooting coach. Hornacek worked his way into a full assistant coach position with the Jazz before being named the head coach of the Suns for the 2013-14 season.

Hornacek’s coaching style figures to be heavily influenced by the two longest-tenured NBA coaches he played for — Cotton Fitzsimmons and Jerry Sloan. Hornacek is considered to be a very patient, detail-oriented coach who allows his players room to learn, grow and make mistakes.

All traits that could have been applied to Phil Jackson the coach. Marcin Gortat, not always one to shine a bright light on his coach, was very complimentary during his time with the Suns (per Arizona Central):

"“The first thing I’ve seen is he’s really patient,” Gortat said. “He understands that we have a really young group of guys, and it’s going to take time to learn everything. Also, you can see through different drills that he’s really a bright guy. He’s one of the best players in the history of this game. He’s working on small details that will make us better. I like that he’s open to conversation. He likes to hear different ideas. Everybody likes to play for him and work for him.”"

Hornacek’s record (101-112) and departure from Phoenix shed some gray over what was the start of a stellar coaching stint, one in which Hornacek won 48 games and was a runner-up to Gregg Popovich for Coach of the Year (the Suns tied the best record ever for a lottery-bound team).

Despite leading Phoenix to this win record, the Suns missed out on the playoffs in a loaded Western Conference.

In a recent press conference, Hornacek broke down some of his offensive principles and how they related to his conversations with Phil Jackson prior to accepting the Knicks role.

Hornacek and Jackson agreed that his 1-4 sets with Jerry Sloan in Utah and Jackson’s triangle are all about floor spacing and then reacting to the defense.

With the Golden State Warriors, you can see similarities to these principles with a team of smart players who make the correct reads out of sets, whether that is a back door cut or a post isolation from a mismatch.

Hornacek visited Steve Kerr and the Warriors during his time off and admitted that he learned some lessons from the defending champions that may figure into his Knicks philosophies for next season:

You can see from the video below that Hornacek favored certain actions to initially get his team an easy open look followed by a post isolation — in this case the UCLA flex (video courtesy of Dave Feinstein):

Hornacek ran other options within the UCLA offense, encouraging his bigs to operate in the mid-range as passers or at the conclusion of an offense in the post (for example, Marcus Morris on the low block):

Hornacek’s sets also allowed strong side isolation with weakside three-point shooting continuing Hornacek’s commitment to strong floor spacing. In his 3-guard offense, Hornacek was able to use variations on drag sets to bring his bigs high and allow room for the guards to penetrate and kick:

Hornacek likes getting early offense, similar to Mike D’Antoni‘s famed seven-seconds-or-less approach, which suited his strong guard play in Phoenix. But if you listen to Hornacek he likes this pace to help make the opposing defense work and to take an easy opportunity if it’s available.

So how do these principles apply to the Knicks?

In New York part of the challenge for Hornacek will be to increase the ball movement to involve all the players on the floor and find some easy baskets.

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It sounds obvious to say this, but every NBA player is incredibly talented. NBA offenses often help get a player the ball in the right spot to do damage after cycling through looks for easy shots.

If Hornacek can bring in these principles and allow the Knicks to put the ball in more hands before a Carmelo isolation then this would be a good start to helping team chemistry and defensive buy-in from the players.

It will also be interesting to see the second year play of Porzingis and how Hornacek incorporates him. Ideally, some of the actions above will lead to mismatches that Porzingis can capitalize upon.

The ongoing difficulty for the Knicks will be putting reliable shooting around those mismatches, something that both the triangle and better floor spacing can only do so much for.

Last season the Knicks ranked 23rd in the league in 3-point attempts per game (21.4) and 18th in 3-point percentage. It’s difficult to see a big jump forward with the current roster.

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The Knicks ranked last in the league in fast-break points per game (8.4) and points in the paint (35.8). Too often the team settled for poor mid-range jumpers, the result of good opponent defense and Anthony shot selection.

Hornacek takes the reigns of an improving defense and his results will be determined by how he can increase offensive productivity without sacrificing defensive results — the Knicks were 10th in the league last season in opponent points per game (101.1) and opponent effective field goal percentage (48.7).

Despite this, the Knicks didn’t create enough turnovers ranking last in the league in opponent turnovers per game (11.3). More forced turnovers and transition offense will help the Knicks win games.

In conclusion, Hornacek and Jackson have said all the right things so far and it looks like the two of them can work together, both share similar traits as coaches and this bodes well.

Hornacek gets a full training camp to integrate his principles into the team with a healthy Carmelo Anthony and an improving Kristaps Porzingis.

Part of the pressure now goes back to Jackson, the roster as assembled lacks good three-point shooting (the Knicks were 24th in the league in 3-pointers made per game last season) and is not fully equipped to run.

Jackson has said that a two-guard front without a dominant point guard is a solution within the triangle — does his stance here change with Hornacek at the helm?

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Overall the Hornacek hire looks like a good one for the Knicks and an upgrade from Kurt Rambis and Derek Fisher. It remains to be seen how much improvement Hornacek can get from the current roster and how much support Jackson can give in improving that roster.

(Player statistics per basketball-reference.com)

(Team statistics per teamrankings.com)