Phil Handy darted across the court from the Cleveland bench, weaved between bodies and tackled Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving to the Oracle Arena hardwood.
Amid the bedlam of Cleveland’s first sports championship in more than 50 years, the former Hawaii guard and current Cavs assistant held on for what felt like a long time.
“He was the first person I found,” said Handy, who broke into the NBA in 2011 as a player development specialist with the Lakers. “(We) shared a really special moment. Just watching him grow the last few years, maturing and being able to play the way he played on the biggest stage … it was pandemonium. I don’t even remember a lot of it. It was total chaos.”
Irving hit the go-ahead 3-pointer over unanimous MVP Stephen Curry of the historically great Golden State Warriors in the waning moments of Game 7 on Sunday. Finals MVP LeBron James closed out the 93-89 victory, touching off an emotional celebration for the visitors in the Bay Area — Handy’s home.
“I haven’t slept much and I probably haven’t felt much,” Handy said in a phone interview from Cleveland on Tuesday. “Just numb right now, man. Just doesn’t feel real. I feel like I’ve been dreaming for the last 36 hours. Words really just can’t describe it, to tell you the truth. I’m in a surreal place right now.”
Reality might sink in during today’s championship parade through downtown Cleveland.
Handy, 44, is the second former UH basketball player (1993-95) to win an NBA title, and the first to do it as a coach. Tom Henderson won a ring with the 1978 Washington Bullets.
Handy processed that information with the word “Wow,” and repeated it threefold.
He’s been a rare constant the past three years for the Cavs, who went from moribund outfit to instant title contenders with the return of James to Northeast Ohio prior to the 2014-15 season.
Handy stuck around not only through the 2014 firing of head coach Mike Brown — who brought Handy to Cleveland — but the midseason axing of David Blatt back in January.
Behind the scenes, he’d earned the respect of his bosses and his charges alike through his passion: hours of one-on-one player attention on and off the practice floor. Such leeway was evident when he generated headlines after Game 2 of the Finals for ripping into the team in the postgame locker room. Cleveland had fallen behind 0-2 in the series, but beyond that, the way they’d lost twice in Handy’s hometown (by an average of 24 points) had him fuming.
This usually quiet assistant to head coach Tyronn Lue, one of six on staff, had never before addressed the team that way.
Cleveland was known for decades for ignominious events such as “The Drive,” “The Fumble” and “The Shot.”
Handy, an unlikely source, produced “The Speech.”
“A lot of anger. A lot of frustration. A lot of curse words,” Handy recalled. “Just really from the heart, man, because our team was too talented to play the way we were playing and not really fight, the fight we had in us.
“Looking back on it now, I am beyond grateful that I spoke up. I just felt like if I had left the locker room angry that night, I think it would have caused some damage to my health probably.”
He thanked “T-Lue” for giving him the leeway to speak his mind.
“And all I can say is the team did more than respond. They woke up.”
The Cavs produced a 30-point victory in Game 3. Multiple Cavs players credited Handy with the energy and mind-set for the turnaround.
“It definitely wasn’t normal,” forward Richard Jefferson said then to Cleveland.com, “but sometimes people step out of their norm and say what they feel needs to be said, and it was definitely something that needed to be said.”
Yet after a Game 4 loss, Cleveland had to claw back from a 3-1 deficit, which would be a first in NBA Finals history. They did so with a sense of calm, Handy said, in contrast to the fire he lit earlier in the series.
As of Tuesday he still hadn’t finished sorting through an estimated 500 text messages in the wake of Game 7.
Handy would like to remain in Cleveland, working with top-shelf talent like James and Irving. Just a handful of years ago, he developed prep players in the Bay Area as a retired European pro.
“I use this phrase all the time: Hard work is undefeated,” Handy said. “I try to teach that to a lot of guys I work with, young kids. I don’t care what you do, you put in that hard work, the results are going to come in some kind of way, man. Just thinking back on all the journeys I’ve had, all the places I’ve been, they’ve all shaped me in some way, they’ve all had a part in this. Hawaii is a big part of this. Going to school there and being there before I launched into becoming a professional basketball player. Just history. But the hard work, man, it’s paid off.
“Never in my dreams would I have thought I would be an NBA champion. Never envisioned it.”
