The Golden State Warriors had their work cut out for them on Saturday night, as they lost to the Houston Rockets in Game 3 of their Western Conference Semifinals matchup.
Following the Warriors' 126-121 overtime defeat, Anthony Slater of The Athletic pointed out an interesting statistic pertaining to the heavy minutes played by the Dubs' starting 5.
Minute totals tonight
Durant: 49
Klay: 45
Draymond: 44
Curry: 44
Iguodala: 40
Lot of stiff walking, ice packs in the locker room postgame. Warriors will not practice tomorrow.— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) May 5, 2019
The heavy minutes are to be expected given how the game went into overtime — in a playoffs game, no less — but perhaps what is more concerning is how the bench combined for only 39 minutes in this one. Kevon Looney played the most minutes off the bench, but he logged merely 13 minutes in this contest, while Jonas Jerebko and Andrew Bogut played only less than five minutes apiece.
This has been the trend for the Warriors in this series, with head coach Steve Kerr opting for a 10-man rotation for all three games thus far. Moreover, no player from the second unit has played over 16 minutes in the entire series.
The Warriors have undeniably the most formidable starting 5 in the league today — arguably even of all time — but some wear and tear ought to be expected as we go deeper into the postseason. This will become even more of an issue if the Rockets are able to stretch this to a six- or seven-game series, similar to how they did last season.
Golden State still remain to be the heavy favorites to go all the way this year, but one cannot deny that depth might just be one of the biggest factors they will need to tackle as they go for an unprecedented three-peat.
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