by Ken Cheng
The Warriors are resting Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala, and Andrew Bogut – aka 3/5th of the starting lineup – tonight when they take on the Nuggets, in Denver. This is just the latest indicator that the Warriors coaching is in full-on playoff preparation mode with 19 regular season games left. On the one hand, this sucks for fans in Denver who paid full price for tickets in hopes of seeing the Warriors’ “A-Team.” On the other hand, Warrior fans should be sending Coach Kerr and his staff some much-deserved imaginary high fives for continuing to do the right thing.
Conserving the team’s strength and minimizing undue injury risk by reducing minutes played has been a priority for the coaching staff all season. Currently, no Warriors player ranks in the Top 45 in minutes played per game. Steph Curry, who leads the team with 33.1 Minutes Per Game, is 46th in the league. The next closest Warrior, Klay Thompson, is 54th with only 32.6 minutes per game. What’s more, there isn’t a single Warrior in the Top 20 in Total Minutes Played this season. Only Curry, who’s logged 2,055 total minutes on the season, even cracks the Top 25.
Put another way: Curry’s total minutes played per game, extrapolated out over an entire 82-game season, translates to roughly 7 fewer games played than current active minutes leader, Kyrie Irving. That’s the equivalent of a full playoff series worth of wear and tear the Warriors coaches have prevented their star from accumulating. Compared to other star guards on West playoff teams, Curry is on pace to play the equivalent of 6 fewer games than James Harden, 5.5 less than Damian Lillard, and 3 less than Chris Paul. The gaps are even more staggering when you consider how the minutes allocation this season has benefited other rotation mainstays like Thompson, Bogut, Green, Barnes, and Iguodala compared to positional counterparts among West playoff teams.
The schemes the Warriors run on both offense and defense are very movement-heavy – think of all the swarming, switching, D that produces all those opponent turnovers and the volume of cutting and screening required to produce so many layups and jump shots. There is rarely even a minute of game time in which Warriors players aren’t running around, exerting energy, and 
making full use of their legs. And in a stretch where the Warriors are playing yet another 4-in-5, any opportunity to limit the possibility of a rotation player suffering a freak, Wes Matthews-like, injury should be considered a higher priority than winning a single game against a non-playoff squad like the Nuggets.
A lot of the credit for this form of big picture-focused coaching is given to Coach Gregg Popovich – aka Steve Kerr’s Obi Wan Kenobi. And rightfully so, as he’s managed to make the Spurs a 5-time-Championship winner (and perennial contender) despite frequently being among the Top 5 oldest teams in the league for the past ten seasons (they’ve been #1 in that dubious category six times in that stretch). Whether Kerr experiences a similar, prolonged, run of success as his mentor by employing similar tactics is yet to be seen. But a great way to start would be to see immediate dividends in this year’s playoffs.