Steve Kerr didn’t need Stephen Curry or Draymond Green to finish off Miami, and that might be the clearest sign yet of how much Golden State’s bench has changed.
With 5:08 left and the Heat cutting into a 12-point deficit, Kerr called timeout. In a lot of games, that’s the moment a coach reaches for his stars.
Not this time. Curry and Green stayed parked on the bench, and the Warriors trusted the second unit to close.
It worked. Brandon Williams set up Charles Bassey for a dunk.
Yaxel Lendeborg fed Georges Niang for back-to-back layups. Bassey then blocked Pelle Larsson and took a charge on Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Williams tossed an alley-oop to Lendeborg. Niang finished the sequence with a three-pointer, and Golden State rolled to a 120-100 win.
The Warriors closed on a 13-5 run, improved to six straight victories after dropping their first three, and got a massive lift from a bench that outscored Miami’s reserves 53-27.
That late stretch was more than a hot run. It was a snapshot of what this group can do.
Golden State’s second unit, usually led by Lendeborg and Brandin Podziemski, can change the game in a bunch of different ways. The Warriors’ bench has outscored opposing benches by 8.4 points per game this season and owns the second-highest net rating in the league.
Kerr can lean on speed, shooting, rim protection, defensive pressure, or pure energy depending on what the game calls for, and he can do it without running Curry and Green into the ground.
That flexibility is a major shift from last season. Golden State’s bench finished 17th in net rating, and injuries kept blowing up the rotation.
De’Anthony Melton and Al Horford missed a combined 69 games, and the Warriors ended up using 43 different starting lineups. This year, nine games in, the group has stayed healthier, and the additions of Niang and Williams, plus Bassey’s expanded role, have given the bench a different shape.
The options are obvious. Williams brings speed.
Niang and Horford give the group shooting, high IQ, and experience. Bassey adds rim protection and vertical pop.
Gary Payton II and Will Richard bring defensive pressure. Melton, as Niang put it, can do just about everything.
“It’s just a different look of youth and energy,” Curry said of Golden State’s second unit. “We rely on that unit to either get us back in games, create momentum, or sustain leads.”
So far, that’s exactly what they’ve done. The bench helped spark the comeback against the Lakers last week.
When Green was ejected with the Suns up by 11, Bassey came in and gave Golden State an immediate jolt. Against Miami, the reserves protected a lead.
And when Curry and Green sat out the front end of a back-to-back against the Clippers, the depth led by Lendeborg and Podziemski handled the job.
“Our depth is a big factor for us this year,” Kerr said postgame. “We feel like we have a lot of guys who can close out games and protect Steph and Dray’s minutes, and they did a great job of that tonight.”
Through seven games, Curry is averaging 29.9 points, fourth in the league, in just 28.7 minutes. Green is averaging seven assists in 26.7 minutes. That’s the payoff for Golden State: the bench is strong enough to keep the team afloat when the stars sit, and the stars are fresh enough to make a bigger impact when they’re on the floor.
During the six-game winning streak, the Warriors have basically held even in the 134 minutes with neither Curry nor Green on the court, outscoring opponents by three points. In the 131 minutes they’ve shared the floor, Golden State has been plus-34. That balance has been hard to find in the past, especially in the non-Curry minutes or the non-Curry-and-Green minutes that have so often been a problem.
Now Kerr has more ways to attack those stretches. He can run the offense through Podziemski, put the ball in Lendeborg’s hands, or push the pace with Williams.
Against Miami, that depth gave him the confidence to let Curry and Green stay on the bench while the game was still in reach. And when the Warriors started slowly again, the second unit helped erase the early damage.
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Jokics situation in Denver is worth watching because extension talks have been delayed, leaving open the possibility of free agency down the line. For the Warriors, the appeal is obvious: a player of that caliber would instantly change the ceiling around Stephen Curry and give the franchise a very different path back into title contention, even as the front office weighs how realistic it is to land a star of that magnitude. [Read more 🡒]