After a Game 1 loss defined by the minutes where Stephen Curry was on the bench, Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr told reporters that playing his superstar for “40+ minutes isn’t the answer.”
But as the defending champions have battled back from a 2-0 deficit to tie their first-round series against the Sacramento Kings, the answer most certainly has been to play Curry more. Since Kerr’s comments, the 35-year-old has played 41 minutes in Game 2, 37 in Game 3 (that would have been more had Kerr not been able to pull his starters with 2:30 left), and nearly 43 in Sunday’s Game 4.
Despite previous comments to the contrary , Steve Kerr is leaving the Golden State Warriors destiny on the shoulders of Stephen Curry as much as possible.
Curry played the last 15 minutes of Game 4 as it went down to the wire, with the two-time MVP unsurprisingly involved in everything. Whether do-or-die it’ll be on Curry, and the latter option was nearly in play after a couple of mistakes in the final 45 seconds.
Kerr and Curry can both share the blame for the botched timeout, or lack thereof, when Golden State looked comfortable up five and with possession. After Sacramento had cut the margin to one with 27.5 seconds left, it was Curry who held the responsibility on the next and final offensive possession. He missed a floater he’d normally drain, leaving the Kings with an opportunity to steal it.
But it’s not just the offensive end where the control lies. Curry was quickly switched onto De’Aaron Fox on the final possession, holding up well before recovering to close out on Harrison Barnes’ attempted game-winner from the wing.
Playoff destiny is always in the hands of the best players, but it may be even more so for Golden State this time around. Without a significant buffer against a high-quality Sacramento team, Kerr has had no choice but to rely more heavily on his superstar.
“I’d like to get those minutes down but every game is going to call for something different. He was brilliant out there tonight. They put a ton of pressure on us to start the fourth-quarter and because of their run I wasn’t able to get him out for his rest mid-fourth. That ramped his minutes up”, the head coach said after Game
Curry isn’t alone in playing huge minutes early in the playoffs, showcasing the competitiveness across most of the first-round matchups. With the Warriors-Kings series still on a knife-edge, expect Curry to continue playing 40+ minutes in each game.
