2016 Cavs players were told they weren’t welcome on flight to Golden State unless they believed they could win Game 5

The Cleveland Cavaliers made history in 2016 by becoming the first team ever to successfully come back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals. Part of the reason they were able to rally against the Golden State Warriors was because former skipper Tyronn Lue had them physically and mentally ready.

Phil Handy, who served as an assistant coach for the Cavs from 2013 to 2018, recently revealed a message Lue had for the Cavs prior to flying back to the Bay Area for a do-or-die Game 5.

“The Warriors beat us Game 4, we went down 3-1,” Handy said during a podcast appearance. “We got into that locker room. T-Lue’s message was — it was no panic. The locker room was actually pretty calm, pretty quiet. Nobody had their head down.

“But the message that T-Lue gave to the team immediately was, ‘Listen, we got one game to focus on. If you guys don’t think we can go to Golden State and win this next game, do not get on the plane.’ Those were his exact words.”

The Cavs had plenty of reasons to overreact to the Game 4 loss, especially after watching Stephen Curry light them up to the tune of 38 points, with 21 of those coming from long-range shots. In addition, history didn’t side with them because only 10 teams had recovered from a 3-1 deficit in the playoffs at the time, with none of those squads having done it in the championship stage.

Fortunately, Cleveland had Lue helming the sidelines and LeBron James leading the players. According to Handy, the four-time MVP had the “same sentiment” as Lue.

The Cavs took it one game at a time, starting with a 112-97 Game 5 victory on the road, in which James and Kyrie Irving scored 41 points apiece. They carried that momentum into the sixth meeting, defeating the Warriors by 14 points behind the 20-time All-Star’s second straight 41-point outing.

Game 7 was the only contest in the 2016 Finals that was decided by single digits, with Cleveland and Golden State trading blows until the last seconds of the game.

James helped lift the Cavs to a 93-89 win, registering a 27-point triple-double and pulling off one of the most impressive blocks in league history. He also put up an assist that wasn’t notched on the stat sheet when he told Lue to give Irving the game-winning basket.

Since the 2015-16 season, only one other team has mounted a successful comeback after trailing 3-1 in a series. The Denver Nuggets achieved it twice in the 2020 playoffs before losing 4-1 to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.