Golden State Warriors Mailbag: Rest, Rotation, Speights

April 20, 2015; Oakland, CA, USA; Golden State Warriors center Marreese Speights (5) celebrates with forward Draymond Green (23) and guard Andre Iguodala (9) during the second quarter in game two of the second round of the NBA Playoffs against the New Orleans Pelicans at Oracle Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Speights will still see playing time in the second round, but his minutes could certainly decrease after his poor performance throughout the first round. There were a few stretches throughout the first round where Speights’ defensive weaknesses were greatly exposed against Anthony Davis. A couple times, Kerr also left Speights in the game a little too long.

Ultimately, it didn’t really matter, since the Warriors were able to sweep the Pelicans, but if Speights can’t defend consistently in his minutes off the bench, then his minutes should decrease as the playoffs go on since defense is even more important in the postseason.

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In addition to him seeing fewer minutes because of poor play in the first round, he could also see a decrease in minutes if Lee is fully healthy in the second round. Lee is also defensively deficient, but he could provide some more scoring punch off the bench from the power forward position. If Kerr believes Lee’s offense will thrive against a certain matchup, then he will give Lee more minutes than Speights in a series. It’s that simple.

As mentioned before, Kerr will play whatever players he believes will give the team the greatest chance to win. Matchups will be key though in determining a minutes allocation for Speights, because if the matchup isn’t favorable towards Speights or if Lee presents a more favorable matchup than Speights does, then Speights will see less playing time.

Although I believe that James Michael McAdoo has shown promise, I don’t see him earning playing time in the playoffs. I think Kerr would rather rely on Ezeli for defensive help since he has more NBA and playoff experience than McAdoo does.

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