The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 465 - 82 Death Triangle

Bickerstaff fully understood Gan Guoyang’s power.

The 81 points against the Hawks was a display of him firing on all cylinders.

And the 48 points in the first round against the Warriors showed that when he was let loose, it resulted in no place to bury the dead.

However, the Trail Blazers’ almost shameless spread offense of isolation plays, without any rule restrictions, stumped many coaches. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

With four players standing outside the three-point line, you couldn’t play zone defense or stray too far from your mark, resulting in a fragmented defensive formation.

It could even be said that there was no formation to speak of; the game had completely turned into one-on-one battles, a test of the centers’ individual defensive capabilities.

And the League, faced with the teams’ protests and opinions, turned a deaf ear, after all, the purpose of the NBA was to attract more viewers, not to satisfy coaches.

As the season progressed, teams were looking for ways to deal with it, such as employing a platoon system, rotating different post players to guard Gan Guoyang.

Some teams stockpiled a lot of muscular big men in hopes of containing Gan Guoyang in the post, like the Pistons and the Lakers.

Fronting defense also came into play; Gan Guoyang faced a lot of it mid-season, but it was mostly broken by Thompson and Drexler’s passes.

By the end of the season and the playoffs, there were hardly any teams using fronting defense against Gan Guoyang anymore.

The strategies that teams gradually figured out were still double-teaming, but not the rigid and slow double-teams of the past.

Those often didn’t work at all, even creating numerous opportunities for other Trail Blazers players, doing more harm than good.

Coaches racked their brains for more complex strategies and methods to deal with super scorers like Gan Guoyang and Jordan.

Among them, Seattle SuperSonics’ assistant coach Bob Kloppenburg put forward an entire defensive system to cope with the evolving NBA offensive and defensive environment.

Kloppenburg had coached for many years at college and high school levels, achieving great success. Although he didn’t make a name for himself in the NCAA, his teams participated in the NAIA national tournaments multiple times with impressive results.

Kloppenburg was a defensive maestro with a unique philosophy on defense.

He named this defensive philosophy "SOS pressure defense system."

The core concept of this defense system was "Offense off defense," that is, offensive defense.

As a scoring game, basketball inherently gave the offense the initiative, leaving the defense in a passive position, taking the blows.

Often, the defense followed the offense’s lead, going wherever the ball went, blocking wherever the offense ran.

The so-called motto "meet the soldier and fend him off, meet the water and cover it with earth" is a basic law of the basketball game because the rules encourage offense. Otherwise, what would the fans watch, what would the game compare?

However, Kloppenburg thought outside the box, believing that good defense, like offense, should not be led by the offense, but rather should force the offense to make decisions.

The defenders should take the initiative to strike, constantly applying pressure on the offense, forcing them to make the worst and most disadvantageous choices, leading to offensive failure.

On this core idea, Kloppenburg set 12 basic principles of defense, such as aggressive man-to-man, pushing the ball handler towards the sideline, denying all first passes, and so on. These principles, combined with tactical defense, created a tight, high-pressure net that made every offensive player uncomfortable.

Then, coupled with a system of defense transitioning quickly to offense, once Kloppenburg’s system took shape, it was quite formidable.

These concepts would profoundly affect basketball’s offense and defense for a long time to come.

Of course, for this system to take shape, the requirements for players were very high.

He needed players with excellent physical conditioning, sufficient size, versatility on the defensive end, and high defensive IQ.

At the same time, the defensive understanding between players had to be good, with a lot of coordinated routines memorized during training.

These high demands meant that the SuperSonics sometimes struggled to produce the desired effects during the lengthy regular season.

For example, one of the 12 principles, "denying the first pass," required guards to fully disrupt the offensive organizer’s every initial pass.

Since the first pass was key to initiating tactics, it was vital, and if disrupted, the opponent would have to switch to plan B or start playing haphazardly.

Like this, the opponent’s offense couldn’t proceed smoothly according to plan, putting them in a very uncomfortable state, forced into high-pressure situations without a set plan.

The approach was sound, but the demands on the backcourt players were too high. To implement this strategy, point guards had to invest 100% effort, sticking close, interfering, and shouldering intense physical exertion.

In college, when facing point guards with average physical conditioning and not very high skill level, this move can be very effective.

But in the NBA, where there are monsters everywhere, like Magic Johnson, trying to disrupt his assists is nearly impossible.

Including the Trail Blazers, Drexler and Porter are both strong and sturdy players, quick to pass and fast to accelerate.

If you defend closely, they can accelerate past you cleanly, making all principles useless.

Therefore, during the regular season, the SuperSonics’ performance was very unstable; Kloppenburg’s defensive strategy failed to work against some weaker teams.

The players were exhausted and weary, and since the team was newly formed and lacked coordination, any slackening would lead to the principles being completely lost, defending however they please.

But the playoffs were different, with team morale high and each game receiving targeted planning, facing the same opponent in a series meant the defense would get better and better.

In the first round series against the Dallas Mavericks, Mavericks’ top scorer Mark Aguirre faced relentless double-teaming and pressure from the SuperSonics.

Mark Aguirre, who averaged 25.7 points during the regular season, was held to an average of only 21 points per game, and particularly in the two games in Seattle, he scored 16 and 13 points, shooting a miserable 41% and 30%, respectively, effectively shutting him down.

The SuperSonics adopted a defense strategy known as the "Death Triangle" against Aguirre.

They started by pushing Mark Aguirre towards the baseline, where they trapped and pressured him, then formed a triangular defense area near the three-second zone.

Although the outside line was left open, Aguirre, pressed on the baseline, had difficulty passing the ball; any passes made were slow.

This meant that not only could Aguirre not score himself, but he also had no way to assist his teammates, repeatedly falling into dead-ball traps, making it impossible to perform well.

This type of defense was borderline illegal, but as the league’s major trend was now teams engaging in borderline illegal defense, if you didn’t do it, you were left behind.

Like the Trail Blazers, under Bobby Beelman’s design, would do the same with their borderline defense, setting up traps in the paint.

But unlike Kloppenburg, Beelman didn’t devise overly complex defensive strategies, instead allowing the players to defend one-on-one as much as possible.

One, one-on-one defense stimulated the players’ fighting spirit; two, simple defensive strategies were more durable and tougher; three, the Trail Blazers had the resources for one-on-one defense.

In this game, the SuperSonics were going to use a similar strategy against Gan Guoyang, starting with conventional double-teaming in the first quarter.

As soon as Gan Guoyang tried to post up deeply, Maxwell would make sure to double-team, and then someone would come over to block the middle, not giving Drexler or Porter any space for breakthroughs.

Next, the SuperSonics started to defend against the first pass on the perimeter; if Gan Guoyang posted up deeply, passing to him would become difficult, forcing the offense to switch to Drexler or Vandeweghe.

Before the game, Bickerstaff and Kloppenburg repeatedly analyzed the Trail Blazers’ footage and knew that once Gan Guoyang was double-teamed to the point of being unable to shoot, he would switch from deep posting to shallow posting.

Moving from the ribs to the outside at a 45-degree angle, or even near the three-point line, this way he was farther from the basket, making it easier to receive the ball and less likely to be double-teamed.

At this point, the SuperSonics would begin to implement their Death Triangle, using McDaniel’s strong mobility and abundant energy to collaborate with Clemon Johnson and Morris Lucas to trap Gan Guoyang on the baseline.

Everything went according to plan, the SuperSonics double-teamed, rotated, and defended the first pass very well in the first quarter, moving quickly and applying strong pressure on the outside defense.

The only points Gan Guoyang managed to score came from free throws and second-chance points; not from one-on-one plays.

The Trail Blazers went from leading at the start to gradually becoming less effective on offense.

Without Gan Guoyang’s one-on-one support, the team scored slower and slower.

Then, just as the SuperSonics’ coach had predicted, Gan Guoyang started to come out to receive the ball.

Clemon Johnson cleared the baseline, letting Gan Guoyang move towards it, then McDaniel came over from the top to double-team.

Tom Chambers was ready to assist in defense near the three-second zone, the triangle in the three-second area was formed, leaving Porter and Drexler open.

Gan Guoyang was forced into a corner; he could try to break through, but that could lead to going out of bounds, and he could pass, but long passes were difficult and prone to errors, making it hard to create an effective offense.

At that moment, Gan Guoyang didn’t hesitate or delay; he quickly made the right decision: to shoot directly.

He took a mid-range jumper from the baseline, with a slight fadeaway, and the ball hit its mark precisely, scoring two points.

Kloppenburg was somewhat dumbfounded—did it really go in just like that?

After a whole series of tactical maneuvers, the issue was resolved with a mid-range shot.