The Warriors’ Andre Igoudala took a hit below the belt, but that didn’t push him to lose his head. After taking a low blow from the Cavaliers’ Mathew Dellavedova — no stranger to controversial plays — and thinking better of a potential on-court fracas, Igoudala connected on his next three shots for seven points while leading a game-changing 25-8 charge. Igoudala had some support during the run but not from usual suspects, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, who both suffered from a poor shooting night. Backup guard Shaun Livingston scored eight points on a perfect 4-for-4 shooting during the spurt (20 for the game) and Leandro Barbosa chipped in with two baskets (11 points on the night). All told, the Warriors bench outscored the Cavs’ substitutes 45-10.
Save for the socking down under and Cleveland briefly holding a lead, Game 1 of the NBA Finals was a mostly ho-hum affair in which the Warriors won by 15 points and led for 46 minutes and 39 seconds. Regardless, that’s one down and three to go.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Game 1 Victory: 
1) Imagine how the Warriors must feel. After seven long games doing battle with a species of super humans disguised as Oklahoma City Thunder basketball players, the Dubs now get to play the Cavs’ defense, one that includes Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving, and the always spacey JR Smith (to be fair, JR has been pretty good defensively in the playoffs). During this game, you could almost see the Warriors thinking to themselves, “Wait a minute. We can do this again? We can take shots in the lane without getting swarmed by an army of 7-footers? Like, for real?” You saw it early in the first quarter when Harrison Barnes was able to score in the lane and Draymond Green was free to stuff the stat sheet again with assists (7), points (16) and rebounds (11). All of a sudden all those possessions where the Warriors had to fight for every inch of floor space against the Thunder are now easier to manage versus the Cavs. In Game 1, the Dubs were able to capitalize. The team shot 49% from the field, combined for 29 assists, and scored 104 points despite Cleveland’s concerted efforts to slow the game down and Steph and Klay having miserable shooting nights.
2) No typo: The Splash Brothers combined for 20 points on 8-of- 27 shooting. That’s the fewest the duo have scored this season. As Steve Kerr said post-game, “even the best players have bad nights.” Cleveland did a great job on Steph, trapping him hard on the perimeter and bumping and holding him in the paint out of the officials’ view. But I wouldn’t expect he nor Klay to continue to struggle. Remember: Steph had 15 points in the fourth quarter of Game 7 and Klay dropped 19 in the third of Game 6. The backcourt will find their rhythm and splash again.
3) Fortunately for the Warriors, the bench was fantastic. When the Dubs get points from any combination of Igoudala, Speights, Livingston, Barbosa, or Ezeli, they’re pretty darn hard to beat — as they proved tonight. In this game it was the trio of Iggy, Livingston and LB, who combined for 43 points on a blistering 18-of-24 shooting.
4) If you have Livingston in your office pool for Finals MVP, congratulations, you’re off to a great start. The 6′ 7″ guard fired in a playoff career-high 20 points and had his way on old-man jumpers and push shots against the Cavs’ diminutive guards.
5) I don’t think Dellavedova intended to punch Iggy in the nether region but I don’t think he took any precaution tonot do it either. In other words: I’ve played a lot of basketball in my life but I’ve never once punched a dude in the balls because I’m always careful not to put myself in a position where I could accidentally punch a dude in the balls.
6) If the Cavs aren’t going to involve JR Smith in the offense (1-3, 3 points), then Tyronn Lue might as well give his minutes to Iman Shumpert, who had a few nice sequences on Curry defensively. Shumpert does that super annoying thing where he picks up Curry full court. I hate guys who do that in pickup basketball. Almost as much as I hate guys who punch dudes in the balls.
7) The Cavs are going to have to win at least one game in Oracle to end Cleveland’s 52-year drought without a major championship. Losing Game 1 when Steph and Klay combined for only 20 points because they couldn’t contain Livingston and Barbosa might come back to haunt them.
8) Klay is a wonderful defender. He’s good with angles and when he gets beat (everyone gets beat in the NBA) he can still stay close to his man and contest the shot from behind using his length. All good stuff. But one fault he’s never corrected is learning to pull back when he’s in foul trouble. During the second quarter when the Warriors were about to break the game open leading by 14, Klay picked up a third foul and had to hit the bench — the Cavs promptly trimmed the deficit down to six. Klay has to be wiser in those situations. His offense is too valuable to the Dubs.
9) As gifted as Kyrie Irving is on offense (26 points) he is just as big of a mess on defense. It’s one thing to be beaten in the paint by a big man and another to lose a guy in transition because your head is on a swivel. This is the NBA Finals. Effort and focus matters. During the decisive run in the fourth quarter, the Warriors went at Irving’s “defense” repeatedly. From 9:50-7:36 of the final frame, Livingston hit a jumper over a slow-to-recover Irving and HB got two easy buckets on him: one on a layup in the post off a semi-move and the other a dunk when Irving just lost sight of him. Kyrie needs to be better if the he wants to back up that little thing he said earlier in the season.
10) Little reminder: The Warriors had a 1-0 lead versus the Cavs last year but got punched in the mouth the next two games. Momentum in a playoff series can flip in a heartbeat — as Dubs fans are sure to remember.