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OAKLAND – On Wednesday night, Warriors coach Steve Kerr and his assistants have a definitive itinerary.

“Our staff will gather and try to find a place for us that has three TV’s,” Kerr said.

Will the Warriors coaches binge-watch their favorite television shows on an off day? Hardly. Kerr and his assistants plan to view regular-season finale matchups between Utah-Portland, San Antonio-New Orleans, Denver-Minnesota and Memphis-Oklahoma City.

The reason? The Warriors (58-24) enter the first-round of the NBA playoffs without knowing their seventh-seeded opponent, despite having the No. 2 spot secured for nearly the past two weeks. All of those games will influence whether the Warriors play San Antonio, New Orleans, Denver or Minnesota in the first round.

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“I wish we could see who we play, especially since it’s the last day of the season for us and we still don’t know,” Warriors forward Kevin Durant said. “It’s pretty nerve wracking. Not nerve wracking, but it’s confusing right now.”

To deal with that confusion, Kerr said he assigned the Warriors’ manager of basketball analytics, Sammy Gelfand, to calculate the likelihood of all the varying scenarios. The Warriors play the Nuggets if Denver and Oklahoma City win. The Warriors play the Pelicans if San Antonio and Memphis win.

The scenarios for playing San Antonio or Minnesota are more complicated. The Warriors play San Antonio if Denver, Memphis and New Orleans win, or if Minnesota, Oklahoma City and New Orleans win. The Warriors play Minnesota if it wins along with Memphis and New Orleans or Oklahoma City and San Antonio.

Yet, the Warriors’ preparation for an unknown opponent went deeper than number crunching.

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Throughout the 2017-18 NBA season, Warriors advance scout Scott Vaughan has scouted games of every opponent in person a few days before playing Golden State. He is attending Wednesday’s Minnesota-Denver matchup. And he spent the past two weeks watching every possible Warriors’ first-round opponent for further insight, which had also included Oklahoma City, Utah and the Los Angeles Clippers. The Clippers were eliminated from playoff contention last Saturday. Incidentally, the Jazz and the Thunder were later ruled out as potential first-round opponents after the Warriors lost to Utah in their season finale on Tuesday.

“Honestly, I don’t think it matters who we play. If we play like we did [against Utah] not locked in, we’ll be smacked by anybody,” Warriors guard Klay Thompson said. “But on the flip side, if we focus and do what we’re supposed to do, it doesn’t matter who we play. To me, we’re still the most talented and battle-tested team out there.”

Those behind the scenes have tried to ensure the Warriors’ preparation matches the team’s talent.

Though the Warriors declined to share specifics on their respective teams’ specialties, the Warriors’ assistant coaches divide up specific teams to scout throughout the season, including Ron Adams, Mike Brown, Bruce Fraser, Jarron Collins, Willie Green and Chris DeMarco.

With the Warriors’ coaching staff more focused on the end of the regular- season, though, the Warriors’ video department handled most of the initial first-round preparation. For the past two weeks, video coordinator James Laughlin, assistant video coordinator Khalid Robinson and video intern Jacob Rubin compiled video of all the team’s potential first-round opponents.

“Our video room is working overtime,” Kerr said. “Those guys are literally working after hours and cutting all the games.”

For the past two weeks, Laughlin, Robinson and Rubin split duties in breaking down game footage for the most recent 10 games of every potential first-round opponent. They divided the clips in various categories, including each quarter, each possession, every different play call and every different scorer. Those clips complement the season-long footage the Warriors’ video department has compiled on all other 29 NBA teams.

The Warriors declined to make their video department available for interviews or for anyone to talk publicly about strategy. But Nick U’Ren, the Warriors’ director of coaching operations and special assistant for Kerr, offered insight on how the team’s video department operates. U’Ren works as a liason between the Warriors’ video department and coaching staff.

“Their competence and their work ethic is the total foundation for how efficient and how well prepared a coaching staff can be,” U’Ren said of the Warriors’ video department. “You can have a genius coaching staff, but if your video room is inefficient or not getting them enough film, the coaches are at the mercy of that. The video room, James, Khalid and Jacob, are the total fuel for what the coaches can come up with.”

Once the Warriors know their first-round opponent, U’Ren said the team’s video department plan on “going full speed” on Wednesday evening. The Warriors’ video department plan to compile what U’Ren called a “video playbook” of all of their opponent’s players. That playbook will contain various clips of each players’ offensive and defensive tendencies. They will then send all of their edited footage to Vaughan, who will compare his own scouting reports with what the video shows. Vaughan will then download all of that material to send to every coach’s computer.

U’Ren said all of that work should be finished before the Warriors practice on Thursday. That explains why Kerr admitted he hoped for the Warriors to start the playoffs on Sunday instead of Saturday.

“It definitely matters,” U’Ren said of an extra day of preparation. “Is it the difference between a win and a loss with all the talent we have? Probably not. But it does make a huge difference because we as a staff have to sit down and formulate our game plan before we present it to the team.”

Warriors forward Draymond Green considered it “kind of irrelevant” on any challenges the players face regarding the prolonged uncertainty of their first-round opponent. The reason had more to do with the Warriors’ flush of talent and season-long inconsistency and less to do with any strengths and weaknesses any first-round opponent presents.

“It’s definitely different, but it is what it is to prepare,” Green said. “Whoever it is, we get ready to play. At the end of the day, it’s about what we do. It’s not about who we’re playing. If we play our brand [of basketball], we’ll be fine.”

To maximize the Warriors’ chances in defending their NBA championship, though, those behind the scenes began their work early. They also worked collaboratively.

Though each Warriors assistant coach specializes on certain teams, the entire coaching staff discusses each opponent collectively after a certain assistant gives an initial presentation on the respective team he scouts. Though U’Ren said he takes detailed notes from what the video department and coaching staff say both to him and in meetings, U’Ren said the two departments also communicate with each other directly. That way, coaches can give the video coordinators specific requests for certain footage. The video coordinators have that information readily available in specific files.

“They’re a pleasure to work with and they’re so competent that I never have to think about it and never have to manage them,” said U’Ren of the Warriors’ video department after working with the Phoenix Suns’ video department when Kerr served as the Suns’ general manager (2007-2010). “They’re totally self sufficient. The coaching staff loves working with them. These guys deserve a ton of credit. They’re totally behind the scenes and they work their butts off and it’s more than just hitting buttons. They have been studying these teams all year.”

Because of that extensive study, U’Ren said the video department has joked recently they are “doing all of this work and you know 66 percent of it is going in the trash.”

Not exactly.

If Golden State wins in the first round, the Warriors would meet the winner of No. 3 and No. 6 in the Western Conference semifinals. The Warriors’ video coordinators also already have footage of those teams.

Still, some on the Warriors admitted feeling anxious.

“I want to see who we’re going to play so I can prepare mentally and as a team,” Durant said earlier this week.

Thankfully for the players, the Warriors’ coaches, scouts and video coordinators have already gotten a head start.

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