2) Goal: Resolve How the Playoff Rotation Will Operate
With the recent benching of Justin Holiday and Steve Kerr hopefully realizing that Leandro Barbosa is the only consistently playing player with a negative plus-minus, the Warriors’ 9-man playoff rotation is evident: the starting 5, Iguodala, Lee, MO (occasional) BUCKETS, and Shaun Livingston. The question has become, how are the minutes allotted among those 9 players?
The Warriors have consistently proven to be at their best with Draymond Green or Harrison Barnes playing power forward. This leaves a total of 30 minutes per game to split between David Lee and MO (sometimes inconsistent) BUCKETS -23 minutes behind Bogut at the back-up center spot and a couple power forward minutes when neither Green nor Barnes is playing. Most crucially, under no circumstances should Kerr play Lee and Buckets together -the Hawks absolutely destroyed the Warriors when those two occupied the court together. If Kerr every considers a frontcourt of Buckets and Lee, assistant coach Alvin Gentry needs to unleash his inner Sam Houston Alamo chant and start shouting “Remember the Atlanta game, Remember the Atlanta game!”