Much has been said about Steve Kerr’s choice to employ a 12/13-man rotation — largely unprecedented in the NBA’s regular season, where a coach usually trusts around 10 guys on his team to play the bulk of the minutes. Kerr, who is known for being media savvy and somewhat reserved in terms of revealing deeper tactics at hand, previously stated the reasoning behind that decision as having several guys who deserve rotation minutes; instead of shrinking the rotation, he instead decided to play as many of them as possible.
While that rationale may be valid, I believe part of the reason for that increase in rotation size is related to the kind of defensive scheme the Golden State Warriors have been playing this season.