Twenty-two teams are playing with a pace rating of at least 100<\/a>, up from 14 a year ago. It is a trend Warriors coach Steve Kerr, whose team is among that group but sits 19th through seven games, knows well.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cWhat I\u2019m seeing is that teams are spreading you out, playing as fast as possible and making it difficult to get to your coverages defensively,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cThe faster the actions, the more difficult it is for the defense to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n
Golden State entered its home matchup with the Suns as losers of two consecutive games in the Midwest. Both Milwaukee and Indiana were missing stars against the Warriors, but made up for it by pushing the ball up and down the court.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought the pace of the Milwaukee and Indiana games exposed what we were doing defensively, and we\u2019ve got to improve those things,\u201d Kerr said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With his roster headlined by four players aged 35 and older, Kerr and the organization have made it a public priority to keep his stars fresh for the postseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That involves playing at a slower pace, something the team has somewhat succeeded in, and something the Warriors\u2019 intricate halfcourt offense lends itself to.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found the balance once we got Jimmy (Butler) \u2026 playing with a little more deliberatness and spacing once Jimmy got the ball,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cHe\u2019s one of the best iso players in the league.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other method involves resting players \u2013 much to Michael Jordan\u2019s chagrin \u2013 to keep minutes down.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Warriors have already sat Al Horford in three games, counting Tuesday\u2019s predetermined load management to avoid having him play in any back-to-backs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the other three vets \u2013 Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Butler \u2013 have played in all seven of the team\u2019s games. Both Curry and Butler are averaging north of 30 minutes a night, and Green comes in at a shade under at 29 a game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of their ironmen streaks could change on Tuesday: Golden State listed Butler as questionable with an ailing ankle. Butler had previously missed two preseason games with an ankle injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kerr had hinted at starting to rest his stars during Monday\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sat down with Mike (Dunleavy) and Rick Celebrini, Dray, Steph and Jimmy, the three main guys who are going to play heavy minutes,\u201d Kerr said, later adding, \u201cThe rules the NBA gives us in terms of which games guys can rest, which games they can\u2019t. That\u2019s something we are really having to dive into now that the seasons going and rolling. It\u2019s not easy, but we\u2019ll do it collaboratively.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finding a way to do that while accruing wins will be far easier this week than the next.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Warriors play three of four games at home this week, facing bottom-feeders Phoenix and Sacramento before going on the road to Denver, then returning to Chase Center for a rematch with Indiana.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then the Warriors hit the road, where they start at defending champion Oklahoma City before two games in emerging power San Antonio as part of a six-game road trip.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kuminga\u2019s agent<\/p>\n
Jonathan Kuminga\u2019s agent, Aaron Turner, made his first appearance at a Warriors game this season. The man who went on a summer media blitz while he negotiated with the Warriors was seen talking with general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. courtside before the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2013 Just playing fast is no longer enough in today\u2019s NBA, playing at a brisk pace…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,485,5552,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-263280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-golden-state-warriors","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}