ORLANDO, Fla. — As the rise in soft tissue injuries continues to become a troubling trend for the NBA, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr says he’s “very concerned” about the issue for the league moving forward.

“It’s dramatic,” Kerr said prior to Tuesday’s game against the Orlando Magic. “The pace difference is dramatic. This team tonight has really upped their pace compared to last year. I think across the league everybody understands now it’s just easier to score now if you can beat (the other team) down the floor, get out in transition. But when everybody’s doing that, the game’s are much faster paced, and everyone has to cover out to 25 feet because everyone can shoot 3s.”

Kerr said the Warriors’ medical staff has continued to show him all the numbers that back up the trend. Over the last few days star players Giannis Antetokounmpo, Victor Wembanyama and several other players have been sidelined for prolonged stretches because of various soft tissue injuries.

“We have all the data,” Kerr said. “Players are running faster and further than ever before, so we’re trying to do the best we can to protect them, but basically have a game every other night and it’s not an easy thing to do … (The medical staff) believe that the wear and tear, the speed, the pace, the mileage, it’s all factoring into these injuries.”

Kerr has been outspoken about his belief that the NBA should cut down the number of games in the regular season. He said he has personally brought up cutting down the number of games in meetings with the league but doesn’t expect it to happen because of the revenue that would be lost.

“I bring it up,” Kerr said. “I bring it up a lot. And I just think if we’re actually focused on the product, it would be great. We literally have not had a single practice on this road trip. Not one. We’ve gone a week, or longer, eight days, not one practice. It’s just game, game, game. So not only is there no recovery time, there’s no practice time. What was different back in the day — you did have four in five nights, which was not great, but then you’d have four days before your next game. So you’d take a day off, and you’d actually have a couple good practices and scrimmage. So there’s no easy answer here.”

Kerr said the league “has done a great job of trying to protect players by not overloading the schedule with four in five nights,” but he’s noted several times during the year that now it feels like teams play basically every other night. He estimated that the Warriors have had “maybe three or four” actual practices since the regular season began in late October. The Warriors have started off with a brutal schedule to begin the year, one that Kerr has tried not to use as an excuse for his team’s up and down start, but is hard to ignore given the sheer volume of games.

“(Wednesday) night will be our 17th game in 29 days,” Kerr said. “Thirteen cities. So between rest time and travel, there’s very little opening for a practice.”

Kerr was asked if he felt there was a specific number of games that would work for the league if it ever did decide to reduce the number in the season. He didn’t have an exact number, but he did have an idea of what he felt would work.

“Everything has to be based on a formula that involves two conferences and how many games you’re playing against other teams and all that, but 72, 75, somewhere in there, would make a dramatic difference for the players,” Kerr said. “I think the revenue is so high and I don’t think it would affect the national TV money because you’d still get all the national games. It would affect home game gate receipts, local TV, so for sure there would be some revenue lost. But I can’t really prove that the product would be better if we had 10 fewer games, but I would bet on it. Sorry, I can’t say that. I would guess that that would be the case.”

Kerr laughed as he said the last part, but the league has an issue with these injuries that is bad for the product. When asked if he felt he had some support for his belief in taking games out of the schedule, Kerr offered a realistic response: He doesn’t believe the number of games will change, but that won’t stop him from trying.

“The tricky part is all the constituents would have to agree to take less revenue,” Kerr said. “And 2025 in America, good luck in any industry. Imagine some big company saying, ‘You know what? We’re not as concerned about our stock price. We’re actually concerned with employing people and giving people a stable job and making our product better.’ Come on, that’s not happening. We know that.”