Ginebra 'Twin Towers' Japeth Aguilar, Greg Slaughter confident triangle offense fits team to a T

Greg Slaughter says the triangle offense, which encourages better ball movement, can fully harness the strengths of a talent-laden team like Ginebra. Jerome Ascano

THE celebrated 'Twin Towers’ of Barangay Ginebra were among the first to embrace the renowned triangle offense which new coach Jeffrey Cariaso has introduced to the team.

“I’m excited to know more about the system, to know more about it,” said forward Japeth Aguilar, who had played under various offensive patterns from motion offense to dribble drive to run and gun to the European-style offense in the past but never the triangle.

“Kaya ko naman mag-adjust sa ibang offense. I’m really focused on it. As a professional, kailangan mo talaga mag-adjust,” added the athletic cager, who, however, thinks it’s too early to tell when the system will translate into success for the underachieving Kings.

“Ngayon hindi ko pa masabi. It will depend sa performance namin. Pero I’m very positive about it."

Fellow star big man Greg Slaughter also sees the potential of the team once it takes to heart the system that preaches unselfishness as proven under legendary coach Phil Jackson in the NBA and Tim Cone in the PBA.

The triangle, which promotes better ball movement, can potentially bring out the strengths of a talent-laden team like Ginebra, Slaughter said.

“It’s gonna be a long learning process. We just scratched the surface today,” he said. “But you can see that what we’re doing, I feel like, is better, more movement, and I think being in a team as loaded as we are, I think  that this type of offense will get everyone’s strengths involved.”

While the renowned offensive pattern has been getting a lot of attention now that Cariaso is implementing it with the Kings, Slaughter hopes the Kings won’t forget to put emphasis on defense as well.

“Any team that wants to win, you got to have defense,” the rookie defensive anchor stressed. “There’s no way you’re going to win consistently just on offense. At least with your defense, you can affect the other person’s offense.”

“Just look at any championship team, they all play defense.”