And Jackson. What can one say? Sure, he is capable of using psychology and short-term focus for the longer term gain. But you’re absolutely right about some of the unnecessary negative comments. An interesting thing that I have never seen anyone mention, though I know folks must have noticed: While PJ is smart and can have a way with words, he is not the most articulate fellow for someone so well-read. I’m not judging, it’s just an observation.

So the question for the NBA is: Will there be six different champions over the next decade, or only two?

And regarding who the next LA coach should be: You might be right about Scott being a better choice. I can’t say. But I get the feeling (maybe because the media told me so) that Shaw stuck around because he was told it was his. It would be a shame if they sent him packing under those circumstances. Makes me think of what’s his name who got traded with Melo, though he wanted to stay in Denver with his family. I know they make loads of dough, but that stuff can be disruptive and cause problems for folks that we don’t see.

Oh well. Game three tonight, and tomorrow’s story will be…

everyone get drunk it’s cinco de mayo!!

Up until now, your posts have been very solid today, but if you want to drag everyone down into the gutter of stupid and pointless personal slams directed towards people that you don’t know, it’s a free forum. (Ugh!).

And my Kobe Action Figure – Playoff Edition will fly forever!!!!!!! (I made a cape for him.)

I have no problem with Cuban; professional sports could use more owners like him who are truly committed to winning and “into” their teams. All I can say is, thank God that Cuban didn’t get to become owner of the Chicago Flubs!

I’d love to see Cuban though finally get invited into baseball’s little owner fraternity as owner of his hometown Pirates eventually though!

The biggest challenge, bar none, of any NBA head coach is to manage the huge egos and big guaranteed contract players to get them to park their egos at the door and play a team game. Nobody has ever done a better job of that than Phil.

Phil’s oftentimes misplaced sarcasm knocking other players (by intentionally butchering their names in an attempt to degrade them), I find though to be unwarranted and frankly irritating. What’s the point? To give other teams locker bulletin board material?

Good luck to whomever replaces Phil at the end of this season though, because Kobe is once again likely to go into “pout mode” once the reality of this being a Lakers team now stuck with a lot of big contracts and being mostly made up of guys on the wrong side of 30 years old.

Everyone assumes that Brian Shaw will be named the next Laker head coach, but if I were Mitch Kupchak I’d be going after veteran head coach and ex-Laker Byron Scott. I have to believe that Scott has to have an out clause in his contract in the event that the Lakers head coaching position becomes open.

There’s little help in the upcoming free agent class too in order for the Lakers to “retool”; the Lakers will have to depend again on some team that’s struggling financially to simply hand them a good player as the Grizzlies did with Gasol a few years ago.

In the lairs of my p[parents’ basement, I fly my Kobe Action Figure – Playoff Edition to new heights in anticipation of the joy that will be sucked out of Mark Cuban’s dark heart. When Kobe and Phil are in charge, they know what they are doing.

The Bulls last night couldn’t buy a bucket in the second and third quarters and a lot of sloppy passes were thrown by both teams. I agree again with Sir Charles though in that the best teams just find a way to win and don’t go back and forth from being blown out one game to dominating the next. In a seven game series, consistency is what counts.

As for the Mavs? Although it’s largely been dismissed, their key acquisition last offseason was Tyson Chandler, who of course is in a contract year (and playing like such). The real question is though, after Chandler gets his next big contract (which I’m sure will be with the Mavs), will he go back to being the “old Tyson” or not?

I loved the after game comments by Sir Charles and crew about the NBA clearly now going through a “changing of the guard”, and it being “a breathe of fresh air” for the league.

Perennial powerhouse teams like the Lakers, Spurs and Celtics are now all rapidly on the decline, whereas teams like the Heat, Bulls, Thunder, Grizzlies and I think the Knicks soon too, being on the rise.

As a fan, I just find it boring in any sport when one team consistently dominates. It’s just a lot more interesting when the pot finally gets stirred.

But his genius is the mellow nature in which he coaches from the bench. At least since the eighties, nobody else was allowing their team to get trounced without calling a timeout. And as far as I’m able to observe, he’s still the only one who does that. I think it makes his teams better. He also seems to make halftime and series adjustments at least above average.

As far as what it takes for a coach to implement the triangle: Patience.

We played pretty decent and got outplayed at home, and now to even it up we’re going to go to Dallas and win 2? I dont see that happening. It absolutely could, but this team doesn’t look nearly as cohesive has they have in the past.

Back to back Champs, if it ends here GREAT RUN, and good luck to Dallas. Much respect to Dirk

You made a solid post. The one thing that you didn’t mention though is that it takes a mostly veteran team that knows how to play basketball in order to successfully run the triangle. The “one and done-r’s” coming out of college today have had what? Maybe 30 games of real coaching in their lives after mostly having grown up honing mainly their dunk and trick shot sklls on inner city playgrounds?

That’s why Rambutt has failed with the offense in Minnesota thus far. His team is simply too green and lacks the horses to run it. You confirmed my main point though, and that’s that you don’t have to be a genius as a head coach to implement the offense; you just have to have the right mix of players to make it work.

Also the Lakers don’t run the triangle every time down because they have other sets they run about 10 percent of the time.

Any team with the personnel and players unselfish enough to stick to it could run it to perfection. So far these Lakers have not stuck to it for more than a couple of quarters a game – which is probably why they aren’t so great at running it consistently.

By the way, that was the Knicks’ Van Gundy who made the Big Chief Triangle comment. Perhaps in response to being called Jeff Van Gumby, so it’s understandable. Just too bad for him that he went on to get bounced by Chicago from the playoffs again.

I can’t believe that in 2011 there are still naive fans who fall for that garbage that you have to be some sort of a coaching genius to be able to implement that offense.

What you need is an outstanding wing shooter who can manufacture his own shot (which the Bulls had in Jordan and the Lakers have in Bryant), a high post center who can really distribute (which the Bulls had in their Longley/Wittington combination and the Lakers have with Gasol who provides that function even though he’s not technically a center), and another legitimate scoring option (which the Lakers have in Bynum and the Bulls had in “No Tippin” Pippin).

The reason that Kurt Rambutt has failed trying to implement the triangle is Minneapolis is because the dummy doesn’t realize that he simply doesn’t have the personnel yet to run it. The same thing happened to an even bigger idiot in Tim Floyd after he took over in Chicago. Floyd didn’t realize that the triangle offense doesn’t replace Pippin and Jordan…. duh-uh.

What’s also changed is the NBA; with the elimination of hand checking, clearly it has become a guard dominated league, making the triangle offense irrelevant except for one bunch of basketball aging dinosaurs that play in LA.

Jackson didn’t invent the triangle, so I’m not sure what his ego has to do with his running it. Don’t you think that it just might be possible that he believes in it?

The negative about the triangle has to do with the fact that it is as complicated for the offensive player to learn as it is to defend. It’s just about multiple options, and if you have the right personnel and run it well, it is just as indefensible as any other offense run well.