"The triangle-and-two should
get a website it's been so popular."
-Rick Majerus



CBS Graphic Illustrating the Triangle-and-Two Defense


The triangle-and-two defense features two players playing man-to- man on the opposition's best players, in this case, Arizona's Mike Bibby (10) and Miles Simon (34). The defenders' job is to cover those players closely, preventing the open outside shot that might be available in the standard zone. The remaining players play a zone with one point of the triangle near the free-throw line and the other two at the edge of the paint along the baseline. As with any zone, the zone players shift to favor the ball side of the court. The player at the free throw line will protect the lane in case one of the star players should break from his defender in a drive to the basket.

The following are the match-ups depicted in the CBS graphic shown above:

Arizona (White) Utah (Red)
10 Mike Bibby 34 Drew Hanson
34 Miles Simon 50 Alex Jensen
42 A.J. Bramlett 13 Hanno Möttölä
21 Bennett Davison 51 Mike Doleac
23 Michael Dickerson 24 Andre Miller
I also noticed that David Jackson (3) had considerable playing time in the man-to-man slots of the triangle-and-two.

Why I think it worked



AP story about the triangle-and-two




e-mail: kbrews@cox.net
Original material © 1998-2007 Keith Brewster. Others as noted.
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