jaymo123 wrote:Can anybody tell me why Kerr doesn't start the 4th with Steph or KD? The 4th always starts slow for the Dubs when both are sitting on the bench.
He tried alternating them for a while but much prefers the chemistry of them together, so that means that there are times when both are on the bench. It's up to the reserves plus Klay to hold the fort (and Cousins, but he didn't play last night). KD and Steph come in around the 7 minute mark, so we're talking five minutes.
In the Portland game, those five minutes didn't go well -- no Boogie, Klay on a bad shooting night. It happens. It's not the end of the world. Kerr is taking the long view and doesn't want to control the minutes for the core guys. Come playoff time, rotations will shorten, and so will the no-Steph-no-Durant minutes. Plus, the non-Steph and KD units will have (hopefully) a base of success to rely on so that they're not absolutely Steph/KD reliant. We don't want them to turn into the Rockets, where it's always Harden or Paul on the floor at all times and they're lost without that.
I like the version of KD with Steph on the floor much better than the version without Steph. Without Steph, the offense reverts too easily into clear-out KD iso mode, while with Steph, there's more flow to KD's game. It didn't look very good last night, but overall, I'm fine with Kerr's current rotation pattern.
