Mike Brown Explains the Lakers’ New Offense

Goodbye Triangle Offense, say hello to something new head coach Mike Brown calls “Strong Corner”. Yeah, not quite as catchy, is it? From the LA Times: “We’ve been able to go through from Point A to Point Z what we want to do offensively,’ Brown said. ‘We’ve put our offensive book together so that we’re always on the same page. We’re about two-thirds the way done with our defensive book.’ Brown coached the Cleveland Cavaliers for five seasons and won’t really change his defensive philosophy with the Lakers because he believes it should be similar for any team — less about tactics and strategies, more about ‘want, willpower, communication, help and trust,’ he said. Offense, however, will require some fresh work. ‘Players are so gifted differently on that side of the ball that you have to tailor your offense to what your team is,’ Brown said. ‘And when I look at my team here, it’s completely different than the team I had in Cleveland. We had a great player [LeBron James] that played pick-and-roll, so we wanted to make sure we had shooters around him. We’d put him at the top of the floor because that’s where he’s the most comfortable to make plays. Here, when you look at the team, we have obviously a great player [Kobe Bryant] that can score almost anywhere, especially between the elbows [of the key]. Just as important, we have a couple of bigs that are very talented in that painted area that remind me of my days in San Antonio when we had the two prolific low-post scorers there.’ Gasol and Andrew Bynum should take note. Their new coach just compared them to Tim Duncan and David Robinson. Brown envisions an offense called ‘strong corner.’ ‘At the start of the shot clock, it will be ‘four out, one in,’ meaning that if we get the ball down the floor quick enough, we’ll have four guys along the perimeter and one of our bigs in the low post,’ he said. ‘If the ball does go in at an early point in the shot clock, hopefully that big will have a chance to go to work without the double team.'”