Derek Fisher is long gone from the Knicks, but that didn’t stop his former colleague from throwing him under the bus.
Knicks interim coach Kurt Rambis says Fisher "skirted over" implementing the triangle offense with the team, and didn’t put in the necessary time for players to grasp it.
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"If you want to learn something and truly learn something, you have to immerse yourself in it," Rambis said Friday, via Newsday. "We didn’t fully immerse ourselves into practicing it, developing it, learning how to work with it, going through the breakdown drills to execute it properly, so we kind of skirted over things. The real learning process of it didn’t have enough time to take place."
Since being fired by the Knicks on Feb. 8, Fisher has worked as an NBA analyst for NBA TV. He said Wednesday learning the triangle offense was difficult, due to decreased practice time in the league.
Rambis outright rejected that analysis, saying Fisher never got the players to efficiently run the offense designed by former NBA coach Tex Winter and perfected by Knicks president Phil Jackson (when he was the coach of the Bulls and Lakers).
"First off, it’s not difficult," Rambis said. "It’s like learning anything new. You have to open up your mind and be receptive to learning something new. That’s a huge part of it. Phil and Tex have always felt it takes players, regardless of who they are, a good year when you’re staying in it, when you’re executing it the way it’s supposed to be executed, a year or so in terms of really understanding it, the nuances of it, where you stop thinking about it."
The Knicks improved to 32-48 after Friday night's 109-102 win over the 76ers.