Ask any player, coach, or employee in the Golden State Warriors organization and they will say Kevin Durant is an irreplaceable talent.
Head coach Steve Kerr was faced with the task of navigating the Warriors through a testy series against the Houston Rockets and through the Western Conference Finals against a hungry Portland Trail Blazers team, all without Durant.
With no other cog capable of matching his firepower or defensive abilities, Kerr had to resort to making it up by committee, using multiple players to hold down the fort.
“Well, we had to,” Kerr said of expanding the bench, according to Ethan Strauss of The Athletic. “When you’re missing Kevin Durant, you can’t replace Kevin with one guy. You have to replace him with three or four night after night.”
The Warriors were forced to play a different style against the Rockets, one that isn't Kerr's favorite brand of basketball, but the one they had to use to counteract a team that had built its entire roster to frustrate and outplay the Warriors' strengths.
Kerr resorted to shortening his bench and putting only his best defenders on the court, resulting on DNPs for guys like Quinn Cook, Jordan Bell and even Andrew Bogut as the series went on.
“I didn’t enjoy the Houston series, but I also felt like it was necessary to play that way to beat Houston,” Kerr said on Monday after sweeping the Blazers en route to a fifth straight NBA Finals appearance. “I hated playing everybody 40-plus minutes and not trusting the bench, but I think Houston forced us to do it. James Harden is a very unique player.”
In contrast, Kerr used his bench plenty in this recent Western Conference Finals, as 11 players saw the court by the early stretch of the second quarter of Game 4.
Kerr will have to find the right balance between trusting his bench and playing winning basketball in the next series, but he will have nine days to figure that out, along with the health of his injured players.
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