Getty Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr speaks to Steph Curry during a game against the Denver Nuggets.
The Golden State Warriors had just come off an emotional win on Friday that snapped an 18-game winning streak for the Phoenix Suns and were following it up the next night with a matchup against the San Antonio Spurs.
To one insider, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to give MVP candidate Steph Curry a night off, but Warriors coach Steve Kerr instead kept his star player in the lineup. Curry had one of the worst shooting nights of the season in a 112-107 loss, and Kerr took some heat for his decision to push the 33-year-old when he could have given him a rest instead.
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Kerr Criticized for Management of Curry
Just one night after reclaiming their place atop the Western Conference with a win over the Suns, the Warriors struggled early against the Spurs. The team quickly fell behind by double digits and trailed by as many as 22 points, while Curry started 1 for 15 from the field. As Colin Ward-Henninger of CBS Sports noted, Curry got hot late in the third quarter and into the fourth to spark a furious comeback that saw the Warriors take the lead with 2:39 left in the game, but the Spurs held a fatigued Golden State to just one point in the final two minutes to notch the win.
As Marcus Thompson of The Athletic noted, the game in retrospect seemed an obvious opportunity for Kerr to have given Curry a night off. Kerr will now have to find other chances to get rest for Curry over the course of the season so he remains fresh for the final stretch and playoffs.
“The Warriors missed an opportunity to rest Steph Curry vs. Spurs and the fatigue was obvious,” Thompson wrote. “He’s played 22 of 23 games, which is on pace to play about 78. But he’s 33, always working again complex defenses and physicality. And he hasn’t played 70 games in a season since 2016-17.”
Kerr noted after the game that his team seemed to run out of energy while erasing the big deficit.
“Just drained. The effort was there,” Kerr said, via CBS Sports. “How do you question the effort when you’re down 22 in the second half and climb all the way back and take the lead and have a chance to win?”
Warriors Coach Careful With Curry’s Minutes
While he may have missed one opportunity to find rest for his star player, Kerr has made it clear that he intends to keep Curry as rested as possible. He told Anthony Slater of The Athletic back in October that his plan is to keep Curry to around 32 or 33 minutes per game, which would be one of the lowest minute totals of his career.
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Curry has been above that total so far, averaging 34.4 minutes per game, the most for him since the 2013-14 season. The result has been one of the best seasons of his career. Curry is averaging 27.5 points per game to go with 6.5 assists and 5.7 rebounds, and was just awarded NBA Western Conference Player of the Month honors — his third consecutive time winning the award dating back to last season. And most importantly, the 18-3 Warriors are in first place in the NBA.
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