Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr says forward Kevin Durant still must do on-court work during the next couple of days before he rejoins the team for practice, according to Anthony Slater of The Athletic. While center DeMarcus Cousins has practiced during the last few days, Kerr is still unsure if he will be active for Game 1 of the series against the Toronto Raptors on Thursday.

Ironically enough, Cousins is a lot closer to joining the Warriors on the floor than Durant is after sustaining a mild calf sprain. Yet Durant traveled with the team and has an outside shot to play in Game 2, though it is highly unlikely at this point, given his slow progress.

“DeMarcus has done an amazing job coming back from an injury which we felt at the time was season-ending,” said Kerr. “He's done an incredible job at rebounding, rehabbing, and here he is — he's scrimmaged a couple of times this week, he's pain free, so it's really more a matter of rhythm and timing and conditioning — all those things.”

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Cousins' biggest challenge will be his conditioning and how long he can stay on the floor through a stretch, as Kerr can't afford lapses in effort or stamina at this stage of the game.

“I think I mentioned the other day, if this were the regular season, I'd throw him out there and he'd play whatever minutes he can tolerate and we'd build him up from there,” said Kerr. “It's not the regular season, it's The Finals, so we got to figure out what's the best way to utilize him, how many minutes he can play, what the game feels like, what the matchups are like. Some of that will be determined by what's happening in the game and the other stuff is just internal with our staff.”

It sounds like Kerr is leaning toward activating Cousins, but don't be surprise if he makes his first few appearances coming off the bench, giving this Warriors team a completely different look in the second unit.