Steve Kerr spoke a lot in the preseason about the benefits of his team's multiple roster timelines. Three games into the regular season, though, the “foundational six” has been the group driving the Golden State Warriors' success, while the defending champions' reserves and young players account for most of their team's struggles.

The sample size is tiny, and excuses abound for the collective labors of the Warriors' second unit.

Kerr changed things up on Sunday against the Sacramento Kings, switching Moses Moody and Jonathan Kuminga's previous spots in the rotation. Golden State's reserves played a dispiriting fourth quarter without Donte DiVincenzo, who left earlier in the game with a hamstring injury. Ongoing load ramp-ups for Klay Thompson and Draymond Green add to difficulty of the Warriors' bench lineups establishing continuity and chemistry, too.

But a lack of cohesion isn't what nearly cost Golden State an embarrassing home loss to Sacramento after once leading by 26 points. Kerr called out his reserves' palpable lack of fourth quarter energy and intensity after the game, and Stephen Curry offered a similar message to his young teammates on the postgame podium.

“That's part of the growth of young guys trying to understand how hard it is to win in this league,” he said. “We make it look easy at times, and that's built over a decade of work and reps. It's really hard to win in this league, and to sustain that. 48 minutes is a long time. You have to feel it and get exposed a little bit to understand what it means to win.”

Curry sheepishly admitted that he assumed his night was over when he went to the bench late in the third quarter. The same is surely true of Green, Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney. A frustrated Kerr pulled his starters off ice with just over five minutes left, though, a sudden, completely unexpected return for high-leverage minutes that resulted in the Warriors clanking good look after good look.

Golden State only hung on for a 130-126 victory because the Kings' comeback began a beat too late.

Still, Curry saw the progress from his team's bench players that helped the Warriors set a franchise-record with a whopping 50 second-quarter points on Sunday. Despite Golden State's reserves playing in the plus-minus red for the second straight game, he believes in this team's depth.

“There's a lot of positives tonight. They showed it in the second quarter,” he said. “There's enough film to show them what that effort does look like, but you have to be able to sustain that and take it night after night. We could have the best 11-man rotation in the league, and have the blessing and riches of who you want to throw into the rotation, but you have to earn that, and we're gonna go through that process.”