The Warriors suffered a 128-120 loss to the Nets on Monday night, the team’s second loss in a row and head coach Steve Kerr has addressed Steph Curry’s minutes.
Curry had a team-high 28 points in 29 minutes, but the team fell to pieces when he wasn’t on the floor and allowed an 18-point comeback.
Like every game, Steph went to the bench with 4:33 remaining in the third and the Dubs were up by nine points.
Once he checked back with 7:29 minutes to go in the fourth, the Nets had gone on a 25-11 run – a deficit even Steph couldn’t overcome.
After the somewhat preventable loss, Kerr was queried about Curry’s minutes since he’s averaging less than 30 minutes per game this year.
“We usually pencil him in for 32 [minutes], and we like to keep it around that number,” Kerr told reporters.“We were able to give him a good rest in the first half because the second unit was playing really well.
“I don’t love to run him the whole fourth quarter and I like to have him close with some energy, and so that means if we can give him that last eight minutes – generally, I feel pretty good about that. But at that point, Brooklyn was rolling, and we couldn’t slow them down.”
Kerr’s comments are fairly interesting, considering how difficult it has been for Golden State to close out opponents in the second half.
But it doesn’t seem like the storied head coach has any plans to change his current strategy when it comes to Steph’s playing time.
The Warriors are sitting on a 12-5 record and are second seed in the West, despite the back-to-back losses.
Their next game will be a huge test against number one seed OKC, who defeated the Dubs earlier this month.
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