The 15 minutes between the end of the second quarter and start of the third are a carefully choreographed production, featuring clips of game footage, wardrobe changes and managerial strategies straight out of business school. Coach Steve Kerr, based on interviews with players and coaches, has worked to create an environment of inclusion. This is not a place for Lombardi-esque rah-rah speeches. Rather, the Warriors’ halftime locker room is a high-speed 360-degree team review.
The Warriors actually begin preparing for halftime as soon as the game begins. Assistant coaches will identify plays that the team may want to review at halftime by signaling them to Willie Green, an assistant and 11-year N.B.A. veteran who sits one row behind the bench. Green is in charge of keeping track of the time and score for each of the plays in question.
Periodically throughout the first half, various other members of the staff — including Samuel Gelfand, the team’s analytics guru, and Kyle Barbour, the strength coach — run portions of the list back to the locker room, where James Laughlin, the video coordinator, assembles the clips on a computer.
Kerr is the first coach to address the team — “Steve makes, in a brief way, sense of what just happened, good or bad,” Fraser said — before the clips that Laughlin collected in the first half are projected onto a large screen. Kerr runs through them.
Yet Kerr does not want to be the only voice in the room — far from it, in fact...
Pachulia has played for nine head coaches during his 15-year N.B.A. career. He said he had never been a part of a more democratic locker room.
“It’s open for us, from 1 to 15 — anybody can say something,” he said. “That’s how this team is built: If you see something, please say something.”
As for strategy, the Warriors run a read-based offense — meaning they look to pick apart the soft spots in opposing defenses. Halftime gives them the chance to recalibrate.
“After you play a half, you can see what teams are trying to do,” Fraser said.