The Golden State Warriors won’t need a players-only meeting to decide how to attack this season and their quest for a third straight trip to The Finals. Warriors coach Steve Kerr will take care f that business well ahead of time. So forget that 74-win pace or any other frivolous regular season chase out there. Kerr is making sure that won’t be a part of his team’s season now, as Anthony Slater of The Mercury News explains:
Plenty of storylines surround the Warriors this season. Included: How often will Kerr rest his main guys? There’s no way to forecast when and who. But it seems clear it’ll be more common than last year. During the preseason, he’s talked about being able to find the younger guys more minutes because the veterans will get selective breathers.
That was tougher last year. The chase for 73 wins consumed the players. With 20 games to go, Kerr made a pact with them.
“If anyone was banged up, they had to tell me,” Kerr said. “If not, I was going to let them play.”
March and April provide the most valuable rest time for the league’s stars. Batteries are recharged before the postseason. Instead, right through the 82nd game, the Warriors were fighting for wins in emotionally charged atmospheres.
Playoff injuries piled up. The Warriors struggled in both the conference and NBA Finals. Many believed the grind had taken a physical toll. Kerr felt it was more mental.
“We didn’t roll our guys out there for 40 minutes,” he said. “You look at the minutes per game — our top guys were down there at 34, 33. So minutes were fine, very similar to the year before. But it was a different sort of emotional feeling. I don’t think we’ll have that this year. We’ve kind of been through that. We’d rather win a championship than set a record.”
But even without chasing a wins record, the Warriors aren’t exactly playing away from the spotlight this season. Opponents will still get up for them. Road crowds will still froth at their arrival. Everything they do will remain under the microscope. Almost anything Kevin Durant says or does right now makes national news.
“Over time, that stuff adds up,” Kerr said. “That’s why LeBron (James) going to The Finals six straight years is, to me, one of the great accomplishments of all-time. Like, how many guys have done that? Maybe Bill Russell was the last guy. I know Michael didn’t do it because he took a couple years off. Larry Bird, Magic never did it. Not six. Six is incredible.”
In a much deeper conference, the Warriors are trying to claw back to the Finals for a third straight season. Kerr was part of the late 1990s Bulls three-peat.
“The third year was the toughest,” Kerr said. “The famous shot that Michael (Jordan) hit over Byron Russell in Utah, people remember that shot. But you look back at that game, Scottie (Pippen) had a back injury, missed 10 minutes in the first half. We were down 15, didn’t have home court. We were up 3-1, lost at home to go back to Salt Lake. We were running on fumes.”
But new arrivals, Kerr says, have charged up the atmosphere around the Warriors. There’s more energy, less staleness.
“It doesn’t guarantee that were going to be better, but it changes the dynamics a little bit,” he said. “I think it’ll make things a little fresher and make it maybe a little easier for us to get through the regular season and get through the grind.”
