Warriors’ talented and experienced bench key to success

OAKLAND - The Golden State Warriors are having an awful lot of fun these days.

Stephen Curry, with his bag full of basketball tricks, received the most fan votes to start in next month’s NBA All-Star Game. Klay Thompson obliterated a league record on Friday night by scoring 37 points in a single quarter against the Sacramento Kings. And the Warriors, who beat the Boston Celtics on Sunday, have the league’s best record, 36-6.

“Couldn’t imagine this,” coach Steve Kerr said. “I knew we’d have a good team, but to be where we are right now is remarkable.”

Yet for all the Warriors’ headline-grabbing feats (and the list continues to grow), the team’s players and coaches cite something slightly more prosaic as a major cause for their success this season: the handiwork of their bench, which has fostered team chemistry while creating all kinds of problems for opponents.

“This is a cohesive team,” said Ron Adams, an assistant, “and the bench probably has more to do with that than anything.”

Coaches often refer to the hard task of convincing players to “buy in” - to the system, to schemes, to potentially diminished roles. It can present challenges in a multibillion-dollar business full of multimillion-dollar egos. Outside factors like players in contract years run the risk of fracturing the bonds that hold teams together. Everyone wants minutes.

Enter the Warriors, who have two former All-Stars - David Lee and Andre Iguodala - anchoring the team’s second unit alongside players like Marreese Speights, Shaun Livingston and Leandro Barbosa.

“If we had one or two guys who were selfish and wanted to start, it wouldn’t be a good situation,” said Barbosa, a veteran guard. “We don’t have that on this team.”

Through Saturday, the Warriors’ reserves were averaging 35.4 points a game while outscoring opponents by 5.6 points per 100 possessions, which ranked them eighth in the league, according to the statistics site HoopsStats.com. Their production is a marked improvement from last season, when the team’s bench averaged 28 points a game but had occasional trouble maintaining leads. Opponents outscored them by 3.9 points per 100 possessions, which ranked them 23rd in the league.

“There are very few really good teams in this league without really good benches,” said Adams, who pointed to the depth of teams like the San Antonio Spurs and the resurgent Atlanta Hawks. “It’s almost a prerequisite. And I think the planning of these benches on the part of some teams has gotten a lot more attention.”

The Warriors’ reserves have been able to exert pressure once Curry and Thompson head to the bench. Just ask the Denver Nuggets, who were blown out by the Warriors last week after Golden State’s bench mounted a 15-0 run in the second quarter, accounted for 67 points overall and shot 62.5 percent from the field.

Just as important, the strong play of the bench has helped limit the seasonlong wear and tear on Curry and Thompson. After averaging 36.5 minutes last season and 38.2 minutes in 2012-13, Curry was supplying just 32.9 minutes a game through Saturday - an average that put him a distant 47th in the league.

“It absolutely has a cumulative effective,” said Alvin Gentry, an assistant. “Over 82 games, you’re talking about an additional 400 minutes on your body. If you can eliminate those, it gives you a huge chance of succeeding in the playoffs.”

Consider, also, the team’s practices, in which the starters often scrimmage against the reserves - by design. Those games can be competitive, in a fraternal way.

Adams likened the Warriors to a group of free-spirited skateboarders. (His son, he said, was a skateboarder.)

“There’s an unusual level of camaraderie here,” said Adams, who has been an assistant on staffs around the league for more than 20 years. “They like to compete, and they like to play. But it’s a different environment from what I’m used to. The players enjoy each other.”

Kerr’s decision last summer to rebuff the New York Knicks so he could coach the Warriors now ranks as one of the great basketball moves of the 21st century. Based on the returning personnel and what he called “organic growth,” Kerr said he had started the season thinking that the Warriors could at least match their win total from last season, when they went 51-31 under Mark Jackson before falling to the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the playoffs.

Kerr aspired for a similar effort on defense after the Warriors ranked fourth in defensive efficiency last season. But on offense, Kerr sought more ball movement and fewer one-on-one situations, he said. He knew it would require a more selfless, caring-is-sharing attitude.

“They literally, to a man, put the team ahead of themselves,” Kerr said, “and it’s not often you find that in the NBA.”

Justin Holiday, a 25-year-old shooting guard whose minutes have been limited, said perspective was readily available.

“I can’t be on the bench upset that I’m not playing when I’ve got a dude who’s an All-Star sitting next to me,” he said. “I mean, come on. You need to step back and relax if that was ever the case.”

It might come off as kumbaya corniness, and winning helps. But players want coaches who are direct with them, Adams said, and Kerr has made it a priority to be upfront about roles and responsibilities. Players also say he listens and makes adjustments based on what they share with him.

The bench, in particular, has institutional knowledge. Lee, Iguodala and Barbosa have spent a combined 33 seasons in the NBA. Adams described them as “pseudocoaches.”

And then there is Speights, a center who was averaging 12.6 points in 18.5 minutes a game through Saturday. He recently started eight games when Andrew Bogut was out with a knee injury. But when Bogut returned this month, Speights retreated to his familiar role off the bench. The Warriors kept winning.

“Some of the best teams I’ve been with, it’s the last third of your bench that actually makes the biggest difference,” Adams said. “These are guys who might not even play. But when they come to work and they’re in step with the other guys, a good bench will motivate your better players.”

All while forming the understated foundation for a team on the rise.