OAKLAND, Calif. _ A group of young Warriors reserves cut a 28-point third-quarter deficit to nine on Monday night in Denver with more than seven minutes still remaining. The Nuggets went back to their starters. But the Warriors didn't.
Maybe Steve Kerr would've last season. Every win mattered in the chase for 73. But this season, every regular-season victory doesn't. So Draymond Green didn't lace up his shoes, Kerr didn't blink and the Warriors didn't make a sub.
They lost, but the stars avoided seven extra high-octane fourth-quarter minutes in the Denver altitude. In a season that will be defined solely by what happens in May and June, prioritizing those added pockets of down time now could prove huge.
"It'll have an effect down the stretch," Stephen Curry said.
In the last month, LeBron James has made headlines with a number of critical comments. Included among them, LeBron told his front office they needed another playmaker. Some theorized it stemmed from his frustration that, at age 32, he's still averaging 37.6 minutes per game, which is tied with Kyle Lowry for the most in the NBA.
LeBron has always carried an enormous minutes load. During his second and third seasons in the NBA, at ages 20 and 21, he averaged 42.4 and 42.5 minutes per game. That was more common a decade ago _ the league's bigger names averaging somewhere near 40 per game.
Sports science has advanced since then. There is player tracking for games and practices. Teams prioritize rest better and trainers advise keeping a player's minutes in the 35ish per game range. The league's most-used players average near 38 per night _ right around what LeBron is pushing _ instead of logging 41 or 42.
But the careful teams try to keep their main guys in the 34 per game range. Golden State is one of the league's most diligent, given the benefit of depth and a large number of fourth-quarter blowouts. The Warriors don't have a player in the top 29 in minutes per game. Klay Thompson, 30th in the NBA at 34.2, leads the team.
"Mentally and physically you're still exerting yourself in those minutes. I'm exhausted right now," Curry said after a recent game. "But over the course of the season, you hope taking care of business, protecting leads, the amount of fourth quarters starters have missed for good reasons will help us down the road and keep us fresh for the playoffs."
Curry averaged 38.2 and 36.5 minutes per game in Mark Jackson's last two seasons. Kerr arrived, the team took off, Curry won two MVPs and they were able to reduce his per game load to 32.7 and 34.2 the past two years. He's at 33.5 per game this season, behind older players such as Carmelo Anthony (34.0) and Paul Millsap (34.3), just ahead of teammate Green (33.3 per, 42nd in the league).
"I think it's made a difference," Kerr said. "But then you look at last year and Steph averaged 33 per game and then got hurt in the first game of the playoffs and it knocked him back a bit. (Andrew) Bogut got hurt. But you'd like to think the cumulative effect of playing guys fewer minutes will keep guys fresh, but you never know. I do think playing guys 34 instead of 38 over the course of the year will keep our guys fresher than they would've been otherwise."
But on this Warriors team, Kevin Durant might be the most important to monitor. Though all four of their All-Stars are around the same age _ Green is 26, Thompson is 27, Durant and Curry are 28 _ Durant has played far more cumulative NBA minutes. He entered the league earlier and has played deeper into the playoffs more often.
Including the regular season and postseason, Durant has logged 29,903 career minutes. Curry is only at 21,300, Thompson at 16,708, Green at 11,999.
Plus Durant is the only Warrior to play in all 55 games this season, which plants him at 13th in the league in cumulative minutes (1,879) even if he's 32nd in per game total (34.2).
But that's still a huge difference for Durant. He led the NBA in cumulative minutes played three of his first seven seasons. He averaged 37.5 minutes per game for his career and was above 38 per game in six of his first seven seasons. So even if he has been tempted to push it to those Thunder levels, he's enjoyed the dip in usage.
"I'll look at the stat sheet and it says 32 or 33," Durant said. "It feels great. It feels like I'm going out there and playing my minutes extremely hard. We have a deep team, we have a nice bench and Coach has done a great job of no matter what the circumstance is, how the game is going, he's going to stick to his rotation because the playoffs, we're thinking big picture. There's some games where I'm thinking I can go 40-plus tonight, but we stick to what we do and it ends up working at the end of the day. It feels great."
