Game 1 of the NBA Finals was everything NBA fans had hoped for, but the Golden State Warriors suffered their first NBA Finals opening loss of the Steve Kerr era against the Toronto Raptors, snapping an NBA-record 12 consecutive series opening wins.

This is the fifth series the Warriors have trailed under Kerr, but they have won the previous four. To win this one, though, they will need Kevin Durant to return and give them a much-needed element at both ends of the floor.

These are 5 Clutch Points of Game 1 of the NBA Finals:

The “feel out” game

The Warriors came into Thursday's opening NBA Finals game without any palpable grasp to how the newly-retooled Raptors would attack them, making this more of an experimental 48 minutes, rather than a chance to snatch a road win from the get-go.

“The biggest thing coming in was we really didn’t feel we knew this team very well,” said Kerr after a 118-109 Game 1 loss, according to Connor Letourneau of The San Francisco Chronicle.

Well now they do, at least to a degree.

The Raptors were caught off guard with Stephen Curry's 11 first quarter points, giving up three open 3-pointers to him and seeing him quickly get into a rhythm. That stopped soon after he came back in midway through the second quarter, as the Raptors were determined to trap him high, much like the Warriors did with Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers, forcing turnovers in the process.

Curry resorted to overhead passes out of the pick-and-roll, but Marc Gasol's size and length clearly bothered him, nullifying an important aspect of the game.

“We're not very familiar with this team, but that's no excuse,” said Klay Thompson, who scored 21 points. “I know we'll respond like the champions we are.”

Golden State's main intent defensively was to stop Kawhi Leonard and for the most part, it worked. Yet Steve Kerr must now earn his keep and make the necessary adjustments, having seen the ferocity with which this team will play through the course of this series.

Kawhired

The Warriors were hoping to blitz Kawhi Leonard from the jump, and they executed that to a tee on Thursday. The visitors approach was that if they could get Leonard reacting instead of thinking, they'd have the upper hand.

That strategy worked almost impeccably, as Leonard was limited with his shots and had a tough time scoring from the field, as four of his five made field goals were contested.

The former two-time Defensive Player of the Year is a problem-solver, but one that acts methodically by adjusting through the course of the game. However, thinking becomes much harder when split-second decisions have to be made.

As gifted as a player as Leonard is, he's not an expert passer like LeBron James is, making traps and fast blitzes a lot more effective — forcing him to get rid of the ball.

What the Warriors didn't count on was the rest of his teammates stepping up to the stage. Pascal Siakam had a team-high 32 on a mind-blowing 82.4% efficiency, at one point burying 11 straight shots — by far the most consecutive field goals made in the NBA Finals in the last 20 years.

Marc Gasol chipped in with 20 points of his own and the now-trusty Fred VanVleet contributed 15 points off the bench.

Leonard struggled from the field, earning most of his keep through the free-throw line, where he hit 10-of-12 en route to his 23 points. The Raptors star shot 5-of-14 from the floor, but trusted his team, made the right plays and was tied for a team-high plus-11.

The Warriors will have to keep pressing Leonard this way, but also find a way to execute better, keeping the likes of Gasol and Siakam from walking into open threes.

6.5.19 — The key date

While this isn't the time to press the panic button just yet, the Warriors will need Kevin Durant to win this series. The team's leading scorer simply unlocks so much of their offensive potential, as well as solves a lot of the questions the defending champions will have ahead in this series.

Stephen Curry worked hard to score the last 23 of his game-high 34 points, working through contact running off the ball, running into screens and passing out of the constant traps the Raptors hit him with after he scored 11 first-quarter points.

It is this exact scenario in which Durant thrives, gliding past double-teams, drawing fouls and picking out gaps in the defense to find the open man. The reigning two-time Finals MVP is a more physical specimen, one that at a near-7-feet, can choose to survey the floor to find cutters or snipe away from the perimeter.

As it is, Durant has only three-to-four days of on-court work, but must get at least one practice under his belt to be cleared to return, according to coach Steve Kerr.

While he traveled with the team, it is unlikely that he will get a practice in the next few days, realistically making Wednesday, June 5 the soonest he could return, in time for Game 3 of the series.

The Warriors are hoping he could return by then, but the more realistic target could be Game 4, allowing him to get more run and cohesion after being out for nearly four weeks with a calf injury.

“If he's out there, he's pretty good, but if he's not out there, we play with the guys we have and we have got enough,” Kerr said. “We have won the last, whatever, six games without him, five, six games. So we have enough, but you play with the guys who are healthy and you go. So we'll see what happens.”

To make matters worse, Andre Iguodala appeared to injure his left leg in the dying seconds of Game 1, further complicating this series. He was pulled immediately.

Iguodala claimed to be “fine” after the injury and appeared to walk normally after the game, but it is clear that the heavy workload is taking a toll on his 35-year-old body.

Durant's return would allow for Iguodala to return to the bench or at least play less minutes, as the heavy load he carried in the Western Conference Semifinals against the Houston Rockets clearly affected his play.

The 2014 NBA MVP also covers a lot of ground on defense and can bother outside shooters with his length, as well as patrol the paint efficiently in situations where Draymond Green hounds the perimeter.

The Boogie Effect

Steve Kerr started the game with a faster, sprier Jordan Bell, hoping to match Marc Gasol's size and length with Bell's speed and athleticism, which drew neutral results at best.

As I predicted earlier here, Cousins came off the bench to help fortify a Klay Thompson-led second unit, with most of his aid through his eight minutes of play coming via the free-throw line and feeding players while he faced double-teams.

This was the first time Cousins came off the bench since Apr. 5, 2013 — but this is a role the big man will have to learn to accept moving forward, given the stage of competition and the delicacy of his recovery from an otherwise significant injury.

As expected, Cousins was a bit hesitant during his return to the floor, looking to facilitate before initiating his own offense, but most importantly, he was slow in transition — an area I singled out earlier as his biggest weakness upon returning.

In this play, Cousins gets beat by Serge Ibaka and is found catching butterflies as the Raptors big man gets an easy dunk.

Kerr left Cousins in after the ensuing timeout as a means to a vote of confidence, but expect him to have a much shorter leash on the big man as the margin of error thins through the course of the series.

Game of adjustments

The NBA playoffs are the stage where head coaches make their name, and Steve Kerr is no different — having made plenty during this postseason, including a championship-winning substitution that eventually won him his first title as a rookie coach in 2015.

Raptors coach Nick Nurse made the first check in this chess game and now it's Kerr's turn to respond with a tweak of his own.

The Warriors played somewhat well, considering they had 10 first-half turnovers and only turned the ball over six times the rest of the way. They struggled to shoot the ball efficiently, canning only 43.8% of their shots to Toronto's blistering 50.6%.

A large part of it came in transition, where Pascal Siakam has made his living all season long. Part of why Siakam hit 11 straight shots was his ability to get close to the basket and finish, as nine of them came in the restricted area.

“Our transition defense was just awful,” said Kerr after the game, according to Anthony Slater of The Athletic. “That’s the No. 1 priority when you play Toronto, you have to take care of their transition. We gave up 24 fast break points, we turned it over 17 times. So that’s the game, really.”

Siakam is unlikely to shoot this effectively again in any game of this series. That is, assuming the Warriors come back determined to nullify transition baskets and can limit their turnovers moving forward.

Yet the rest of what the Raptors brought to the table is repeatable, as they are a sound 3-point shooting team that plays with pace and is built around shooters that can make the smart play and are willing to find the open man.

Draymond Green, who only played this team once before this season, took responsibility for Siakam's big night

“Well, you know, I mean, really the only time I ever really played him was last year,” said Green. “I played him the second time we played this year, but I think I probably played 16 minutes or something like that. I was just coming back from injury.

“He’s become a guy. He put a lot of work in to get there and I respect that, but like I said, I got to take him out of the series and that’s on me.”

The Warriors' main task has now become to tread water until Kevin Durant can return, but stealing Game 2 on the road could potentially give them a massive upper hand in this series, especially if Kerr's adjustments prove to solve some of their transition ailments.