Cleveland's Finest. Vince McKee
They made the playoffs for the first time in several years. The Cavaliers lost to Chicago in the first round, taking the Bulls to the limit by forcing a deciding game five in the best of five. It was the first trip to the playoffs for this young group, and also the first showdown with a player who would become a familiar enemy: Michael Jordan.
It didn’t matter to the team who the leading scorer was each night. Their philosophy was to feed the hot hand on any given night. They were unselfish, which was the key component to why they were so good. There weren’t any egos on the team, a true sign of teamwork and great coaching. Longtime radio play-by-play man Joe Tait had these words to share about the team dynamics:
That was a ball club from top to bottom that was a more talented team then the “Miracle Team,” but in the same token the league was much better as well. Michael Jordan was playing in a league of his own. You had Isiah Thomas with the Pistons, Malone and Stockton with the Jazz, and the best pound-for-pound player, Magic Johnson, who could play all five positions. It was the same in the standpoint that the fans really got pumped, but in the same token the league was loaded with talented teams at that particular time.
It was common for the Cavaliers to have a two-hour practice followed by a one-hour meeting in the locker room. They loved to talk and spend time with each other so much that after most practices they would all go over to a teammate’s house to bond some more! Larry Nance shared his view of this magical time:
I think it is because we loved each other and it didn’t matter night to night who was the leading scorer. We didn’t care who was going to be the leading scorer—we just wanted to win. Our goal was to find the guys with the hot hands and keep feeding them the ball. There were no egos ever, anywhere or anytime! We never got into an argument about someone taking too many shots; it never happened. We truly loved being around each other, and so did our wives and families. I was never part of a group that was like that before or after. That kind of teamwork and chemistry is what made us successful. I don’t see that type of thing anymore with today’s athletes and teams. That’s why so many people when I go places say they loved our group. They enjoyed watching unselfish team basketball.
This kind of team bond was and still is very rare in professional sports. Craig Ehlo explains the camaraderie of the team during this time:
The main thing was team chemistry and that we made ourselves available for fans by living in the local area. Our chemistry was built with several factors in place, one of which was the fact that Larry Nance had a pond we would go fishing in before practice behind his house. We played together, and it didn’t matter that we had All-Stars because we still played together. I think people really enjoyed our team because of our method of playing. It didn’t matter who led the team in scoring as long as we won. I think it was a fun time for people to come out and watch a team play together like that. Then in the off-season we all stayed in town and none of us moved out of state. I lived in Fairlawn, Mark and Brad lived in Hudson, Larry lived in Bath, and “Hot Rod” lived in Akron, so we were visible. We would go to Summit Mall and constantly interact with fans. I think because we were visible and stayed in the community through the year it helped the fans’ relationship with us. I think it helped having Joe Tait around, too, because if he was doing something with his horses at the racetracks or events with women’s groups, it was amazing. I never thought I would spend my summers in Cleveland, but then I found that there was lots to do by sticking around. There were plenty of golf courses and many other things to do. I think our visibility in the community is what won over the hearts of the fans.
Ehlo went on to explain how everyone on the team got along so well together:
Our wives would get mad at us after the games because we would sit in the shower for over an hour after the game like a bunch of old women just talking. We would walk out in that cold garage in the Richfield Coliseum and our wives would be like, “What is taking you so long?” It was just an amazing time listening to “Hot Rod” talking about Louisiana or Larry talking about cars, or even listening to Tree Rollins talk about how many kids he had. Gary Briggs, our trainer, was the glue that held us together.
The fans flocked to the Coliseum to see this unique and unselfish team-orientated basketball. The Coliseum was rocking nightly as the fans gravitated to the players on the court because of their workmanlike approach. The total season attendance was 730,925, a number good enough to finish 5th out of 25 teams in the league. It proved once again that when Cleveland produces a winner, the fans show up to the games.
The 1988–89 season was the first full season with the core team in place, and it quickly showed as the Cavaliers continued to improve. They managed to win a club-record 57 games, good enough to finish second in the Eastern Conference Central Division. The key factor to the improvement was how well the team bonded. They were friends on and off the court and truly cared for one another. This was a factor in building their chemistry and made them dangerous to any opponent.
The first-round playoffs matchup was against the Chicago Bulls, a team they had beaten all six times that they faced them in the regular season. With homecourt advantage and the dominant regular season record in place, it seemed that the Cavaliers would easily get revenge for the previous season’s playoff outcome. Sadly, with expectations high, they promptly lost game one of the series at home 88–95. They bounced back with a game two victory of 96–88 and traveled to Chicago with the series tied. The Bulls wasted no time in reclaiming the lead in the series with a 101–94 game-three win. A thrilling game-four overtime win for the Cavaliers sent the series back home to Cleveland for the deciding game five.
In game five, Craig Ehlo played the game of his life, scoring 24 points, 4 assists, and 4 three pointers off the bench, and gave the Chicago defenders fits all afternoon. His last-few-seconds go-ahead layup gave the Cavaliers a 100–99 lead. Then Chicago called their last timeout to set up a final play. Seconds later, Jordan hit “the shot,” and Cleveland was knocked out of the playoffs for the second straight year by the greatest basketball player of all time. Jordan finished with a game-high 44 points, and his game-winning shot would go down as one of the most famous of all time. Larry Nance related why, after such a great season, things went wrong in the playoffs:
Not to make excuses because the team from Chicago was very good, but injuries hurt us late in the season. I know I had some ankle problems that may have held me out of the next round. I truly feel that when our team was healthy we could beat any team in the league, including Chicago. I’m not making excuses, but I’m just saying we weren’t healthy and they went on to win. It’s just part of life in basketball.
This was an incredible 1989 season in which the Cavaliers beat the Chicago Bulls six times but just couldn’t get past them in the playoffs. Craig Ehlo shared what he thought happened during that playoff run:
We just owned the Bulls that season, as we won a lot more games than they did. We secured the three seed and they had the six seed, which led to the matchup in the first round. It was the first year the Bulls decided to wear black socks and black shoes and it gave them this special mojo. It’s not that Michael needed the extra help, but it seemed to make his teammates play better. We had played poorly in game four and should have lost that game, but Jordan missed two free throws. It allowed us to take that game in overtime and win. It gave Jordan some added fuel as we headed back home for the fifth and final game. Every time you hear Michael Jordan talk about playing against Cleveland, he mentions he hated the fans because it was such a great rivalry, despite the amazing games he had against us. We were such competitive teams, and it led to some great games between us.
Ehlo elaborated on what happened with “the shot”:
We had a simple give-and-go play moments before with me and Larry Nance that led to me hitting the go-ahead shot to put us up by one point with seconds to go. The play worked to perfection—all five of us on the court did our job to execute it. The problem was that it left three seconds for the greatest player of our lifetime. To tell you the truth, we did something that we never did before. Coach Wilkens was one of the coaches that kept someone on the vision of the ball, but for some reason he chose to pull Nance off that assignment and called for a double team on Jordan. I think if I had been playing one-on-one with him, I would have played him harder, but because I had the help I may have slacked off a little bit. When Jordan