Every Monday we’ll check take a quick dive into some of the more interesting X’s and O’s related topics from the previous week.

Warriors Pushing the Pace

With so many skilled and uniquely talented offensive players, it's a shame that many Golden State Warriors' games under Mark Jackson were so hard to watch. Too many offensive possessions encouraged their stars to embrace the 1-on-1 motto of the 1990s era of the NBA, making some trips down the floor a mind-numbing slog lacking creativity, cohesion and unselfish play.

Steve Kerr was hired to to fix these issues (among other things) and while there’s noted improvement in their halfcourt sets, one of the biggest changes evident in Golden State’s first few preseason games is in their transition attack. Golden State wasn’t exactly a slow paced under Jackson, finishing 6th in pace according to ESPN’s advanced metrics, and the tempo under Kerr thus far suggests they’ll be near the top 5 of the league once more. The biggest surprise isn’t so that they’re running, but how they’re doing it.

Despite the presence of Kerr and lead assistant Alvin Gentry, a duo that worked together during the tail end of the Steve Nash years in Phoenix, the Warriors are taking a very balanced approach to pushing the pace. Instead of casting Stephen Curry as the lead in a point guard-centric production similar to how Mike D’Antoni, and later Gentry, used for Nash with the Suns, Kerr and Gentry have created an equal opportunity fast break.

Any player -- from Andrew Bogut to Curry -- apparently has the freedom to “rip-and-run”, or grab a rebound and push the ball upcourt as quickly as possible. It’s an interesting tactic because it takes the ball out of the hands of the team’s best playmaker (Curry) and has players like Draymond Green and Klay Thompson breaking out ahead of the pack trying to make plays before the defense is set.

But the Warriors are unique in that their entire starting five and nine-tenths of their possible rotation are equipped to handle the ball and push it upcourt (David Lee and Bogut being such skilled bigs is the difference maker). It’s led to some interesting developments, like Green dribbling free throw line to free throw line and sinking a jumper, but overall has seemed to produce a bevy of open shots early in the clock. It can also certainly be argued that without the rebounder trying to find a guard for an outlet, it allows the Warriors to play slightly faster.

Given how the old-school thought and new-school approach suggest getting the ball into the hands of a single playmaker and letting him make all the choices, this new approach is certainly an interesting development. But the thought from Kerr and Gentry must be that they don’t want Curry to be Nash. Having worked closely with both now, the two coaches may have realized the little things that Nash did well in Phoenix -- like throw the ball ahead quickly (called an advance pass) and probe the defense specifically to look for trailing shooters -- aren’t really what Curry is best at. Curry is primarily looking to dribble down and look for his own shot. And taking the ball out of Curry’s hands also means he’s free to just sprint down the floor and move to an open spot behind the arc during a time while the defense is scattered.

Still, the prospect of Curry assuming the Nash role in the D’Antoni, up-tempo, spread pick-and-roll system is a pretty interesting alternative. Should this equal opportunity approach start leading to bad shots or routinely waste precious seconds on the shot clock as the wrong players consistently fail to penetrate the heart of the defense, it might prompt a change in approach.

A Three-Sided Mistake

There have been so many words written about the Triangle Offense these days that it seems trite to mention it here. But in watching the New York Knicks play the Boston Celtics last week, it’s impossible not to see the offense operate and muse about it’s place in basketball. Obviously, last Wednesday’s loss to the Celtics is just one game, an extremely meaningless one at that and the very first under new head coach Derek Fisher. It’s beyond unfair to judge the offenses impact on this particular team, but what really caught my attention is even how it looked when it was run correctly.

One of the biggest misnomers about the Triangle is that it’s an offense that caters to perimeter stars like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and now, potentially, Carmelo Anthony. The truth is the offense -- which originated in the 1940s under Sam Barry to give you some perspective -- is actually designed for post players, traditionally big men. Even the original strongside triangle that is the offense’s signature look came about to give a team two angles to enter the ball into a posting big man (basically, if the post player was denied a pass from the wing with a three-quarters coverage, the ball could move to the corner man who would have the proper angle to enter the ball). The Triangle can stake a claim that “anyone can post” in the offense, but when it comes to the Knicks, there are arguably two players that could generate the great scoring opportunities from posting up -- Amar’e Stoudamire and Anthony. Watching Samuel Dalembert trying to channel his inner-Olajuwan is certainly enjoyable to watch, but it doesn’t lend itself to winning games.

The other side of it is that the definition of “great scoring opportunities” has changed pretty drastically over even just the last decade. The invasion of analytics has sharpened the thought process of both teams, media and a more connected fan base. Nowadays it’s pretty universal that free throws, layups and 3’s (in that order) are the most productive shot attempts per possession.

You know what a common result out of the ball movement in the Triangle is? A mid-range jumper coming out of the two-man game on the weakside. Now a few times the Knicks worked the offense to perfection and generated a layup to a cutting big man (Once off the greatest play label in pro sports, the “blind pig”, which is basically no-look drop pass to a player cutting backdoor. Oh, and the video’s associated with the Triangle Offense and the Blind Pig on Youtube are, unfortunately, wrong). It’s just very hard to engineer the high-value looks teams want out of that offense unless they are routinely hitting on cuts to the basket, which teams are not routinely getting against quality opponents.

Now that doesn’t mean the offense is necessarily doomed to failure or be bad for Anthony. Jordan and Bryant clearly operated just fine in it during their heydays (but it’s also probably important to point out that great players are typically great in any system, it’s the lesser players in the league that are most reliant on schemes to maximize their skill sets). But the bottom line is the Triangle has some solid concepts, but seems increasingly ill-suited for today’s NBA. But perhaps Derek Fisher and the Knicks will prove that assumption wrong.