Once Again, There Are Three Sides to Story of Their Offense

The game is tense, the score is close, the clock is running and the crowd is screaming. The Lakers look to their coach for instructions and what they might hear is, “Cross gain, buttonhook, double entry to the backdoor step, dribble weave.”

And people wonder why players sometimes struggle with the triangle offense?

Not only is new Coach Frank Hamblen trying to put back the old Laker offense in the middle of the season without the benefit of much practice time, he is also trying to teach his players a new basketball language.

“It’s a tough situation,” said assistant coach Brian Shaw, who played in the triangle under coach Phil Jackson. “It’s a matter of trying to get the players to unlearn what they have already learned to this point. The triangle offense has its own terminology. Phil and Tex Winter [the father of the modern triangle] would give us a whole glossary of terms in training camp.”

Hamblen is trying to at least simplify Jackson’s terms, which sounded more like something heard in a football huddle.

Shaw, who had been scouting, was brought back to the bench because he has been through Jackson’s course in Triangle 101.

“But I’ve never been through anything like this,” he said. “[On those teams,] the players made it look easy.”

Hamblen is the first to acknowledge what he’s demanding is not easy.

“There is a lot we are trying to cram into their heads,” he said, “without a training camp. That’s asking a lot. It’s hard. I know it’s hard. Maybe we are putting in too much too fast.”

So why not just stay with the offense used by previous coach Rudy Tomjanovich, who resigned earlier this month because of health problems?

Because, Hamblen said, he couldn’t operate under Tomjanovich’s system, which consisted of calling the plays from the bench. “I wasn’t real comfortable with that,” Hamblen said.

“The feeling is, this team is better suited for this system,” Shaw said.

During practice Saturday at the team’s training center in El Segundo, Hamblen said, “You don’t see a lot of All-Stars out there. The deck has been reshuffled. This is who we are. This is what we have.”

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TODAY

vs. Toronto, 10 a.m. PST, Channel 9

Site -- Air Canada Centre

Radio -- XTRA (570), KWKW (1330).

Records -- Lakers 28-25, Raptors 23-32

Record vs. Raptors -- 1-0

Update -- Kobe Bryant scored 48 points in a 117-99 Laker win over Toronto Dec. 28 at Staples Center. The Lakers are 7-1 in Toronto since the Raptors joined the league for the 1995-96 season.