INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Even with his team’s season on the line, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr is not willing to risk his players’ health for a better chance at winning.

After Sunday’s regular-season finale, Kerr said that Steph Curry, Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis would not be asked to play 40 minutes in the play-in game at the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday.

“Yeah, there will be, but I don’t know exactly what that number will be,” Kerr said about a minutes restriction, clarifying Monday that Curry in particular should be able to play at least 30 minutes and “hopefully some more” beyond that.

Curry suggested that he’d be comfortable going beyond that number as he continues ramping up in his return from a knee injury.

The idea of intentionally limiting playing time for his best players with the season on the line was baffling for some fans.

When asked about the topic again on Tuesday, Kerr said the decision was easy.

“We have several guys who we’d love to play 38 minutes, but for whatever reason, injuries, age, it’s just not something we can do,” Kerr said after practice Tuesday. “We just adapt and adjust, and we’re comfortable playing a lot of people.”

If Golden State (37-45) wins Wednesday, it will then travel to Portland or Phoenix for another win-or-go-home play-in game for the right to face top-seeded Oklahoma City in the first round.

The Warriors will need their veterans to be healthy enough to play in those games, too.

One look at the Warriors’ recent boxscores is all that is needed to understand Kerr’s logic.

Curry has yet to clear the 30-minute threshold in any of the four games he has played since returning on April 5 from a two-month absence caused by runner’s knee.

Even when he was healthy during the early portion of the regular season, Curry was not expected to play 80% of the game. The only time he cleared 40 minutes in the regular season was an overtime loss in Toronto on Dec. 28.

Meanwhile, Horford has played over 30 minutes twice this season, Porzingis not once since joining the Warriors in February, and both have struggled with injuries all season while being held out of both sides of back-to-backs.

Asking those veterans, all over 30 years old, to suddenly log 40 high-intensity minutes could be a recipe for a devastating injury.

The impact of which would be magnified this late in the season, when it could easily bleed into the 2026-27 calendar.

So while the Warriors want a shot at a seven-game series, Kerr and the medical staff will not risk long-term success for it.

Curry on play-in vs. Game 7

Curry knows how to thrive in a play-in game, having scored at least 30 points in three of four starts. He’s also starred in a slew of Game 7s over the course of his Hall of Fame career.

On the surface, it would seem as if both do-or-die scenarios should be approached the same way. But while the desperation remains the same with the season on the line, Curry made sure to point out a crucial difference between the two.

The familiarity Game 7 brings cannot be replicated in a single-game elimination format.

“In those other six games, you really get to know a team inside and out, almost better than they know themselves, and there’s no replacing that,” Curry said. “With the play-in, you’re guessing a lot …. You have to assume that they’re going to guard you a certain way, or that their rotation is going to be a certain way. In a play-in series, you feel it out game after game after game.”

The Warriors are 1-3 in play-in games.

Green on Leonard

If Kawhi Leonard has been affected by the investigation into him allegedly signing a no-show endorsement contract that circumvented the salary cap, he has not shown it.

The Clippers’ superstar has averaged a career-high 27.9 points per game while playing in 65 games. No team knows what kind of a force a healthy Leonard can be better than Golden State.

“He’s looking like the Kawhi we played in the NBA Finals seven years ago,” Draymond Green said.

In that series, Leonard averaged 28.5 points per game en route to a six-game Toronto Raptors victory over the shorthanded Warriors.

Green will likely draw the assignment of checking Leonard man-to-man, something he did with aplomb in March when he helped hold Leonard to only 14 shot attempts.

But he made no pretense at being able to shut down Leonard individually, calling it a team effort. Green also made sure to note that the difference in regular season and playoff officiating also could help.

“If you’re someone that shies away from physicality, you can’t be a 16-game player,” Green said, using his trademark term for someone who thrives in the postseason. “I think one of the beautiful things the NBA does in the playoffs, with the referees and what they do, is you have to go win. You’re not getting bailed out.”

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