http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/sport ... ref=sports
At West Point, Knicks Seek Something Different: Discipline
OCT. 4, 2014
By SCOTT CACCIOLA
WEST POINT, N.Y. — There was no shortage of material for the Knicks to digest during the first week of preseason practice. With Phil Jackson watching from his courtside perch, Coach Derek Fisher installed bits and pieces of the triangle offense, a work in progress if ever there was one.
But even as the Knicks began to tackle advanced geometry, the coaching staff continued to highlight the basics. Consider a practice last week when the Knicks formed two lines so they could take part in a drill that some had not seen since high school: throwing chest passes.
“It’s unbelievable how many small things we’ve been going over,” J. R. Smith said. “It’s all stuff we’ve heard. It’s just stuff we haven’t done in so long.”
Fundamentals and discipline were two points of emphasis at West Point, which provided a meaningful backdrop for everything that Fisher and Jackson, the team president, hoped to accomplish.
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On one level, it was hard not to interpret much of what the Knicks did here as an indictment of everything they did last season. It is worth remembering that they were not particularly good at the basics. They were not disciplined. In fact, there is a catalog of evidence: their end-of-game debacles, their defensive snafus, their inability to avoid reaching for opponents’ shoelaces.
Fisher referred to all the games the Knicks lost by close margins last season. The team neither executed nor communicated, especially when it mattered most.
“If you can get stops at the end of the game, more of those games go in your favor,” Fisher said.
Fisher said he spent much of September mapping out the first week of practice. Part of it had to do with logistics. The Knicks were sharing the gym with Army’s basketball teams. Fisher also said he wanted to carve out time for the players to interact with the cadets.
Last Wednesday, for example, the Knicks dined at the mess hall. Jason Smith, one of the team’s new centers, said watching 4,400 cadets eat lunch in 20 minutes left an impression, calling it “incredible.” Fisher said the team’s practice that afternoon was particularly sharp, and he did not think it was an accident.
“Asking where they come from, what they’re about, what it takes to make it through this — man,” Smith said of his mess-hall experience. “I’m nervous for them.”
From the outside looking in, it might have seemed like a strange mix. Jackson, after all, is known for being more counterculture than conformist. But it was his idea to move training camp to West Point, and from a basketball standpoint it made perfect sense: The triangle is all about order and structure. It also hinges on each player maintaining proper spacing — generally 15 to 18 feet — and becoming part of the whole. The metaphors, then, were impossible to miss.
Clarence Gaines Jr., a basketball adviser for the team, offered a glimpse of practice by posting a series of photos on Twitter. One was of a dribbling drill, and another was of the two-line passing drill, which Gaines described as an ode to Tex Winter, an early innovator of the triangle and one of Jackson’s coaching mentors.
“Fundamentals being taught & emphasized!” Gaines wrote for one post. In another, he cited how order and discipline were “important from start to finish.”
For the players, the back-to-basics routine was almost refreshing. As Amar’e Stoudemire put it, “These fundamentals we’re learning, I feel like I can teach my son them.”
Iman Shumpert recalled doing two-man passing drills in high school, and even some in college. But in his first three seasons with the Knicks? Not so much, he said. He found the refresher course to be useful.
“When we start playing, those passes feel a lot crisper when you’re throwing them,” he said. “You’re more comfortable because you’ve worked at it for 10 to 15 minutes.”
It is especially important in the triangle because the type of pass that is thrown — chest, bounce, hook, lob — is defined by the player’s location on the court and how he is being defended. It might seem like minutiae, but all those movements are choreographed. They mean something.
“Honestly, I used to throw passes however I felt like throwing them,” Shumpert said. “I’d been playing ball for so long, however I could get it to them, I just wanted to get it in their hands. I never thought about it. But this year, they’re making you conscious of everything you’re doing. Everything is controlled, and everything is anticipated.”
Fisher, meanwhile, appeared to have little trouble finding his voice. Cole Aldrich, a center who was a teammate of Fisher’s in Oklahoma City, said none of it came as a surprise. With the Thunder, Fisher was known to reach for the whiteboard during scrimmages and draw up plays. He was authoritative, even as a player.
Said Shumpert, “It sort of seems like he’s done this all before.”
And so it went for the Knicks during week one, a mix of new and old. It was, if nothing else, different.
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