by 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 home court advantage and the dominant regular season record in place, it seemed that the Cavs 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 Cavs sent the series back home to Cleveland for the fifth and 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 Cavs a 100-99 lead. Then, Chicago called their last timeout to set up a final play. Seconds later, Michael 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 relates 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.” It led to an incredible 1989 season in which the Cavs beat the Chicago Bulls six times, but they just couldn’t get past them in the playoffs.
Craig Ehlo shares what he thinks 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 ballgame, 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 goes into further detail 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 as 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, 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 juked Larry on the first move, I ran over to catch him and by the time I got there Jordan was already coming back the other way so I went flying across him like E.T. across the moon and went right by him. I kept my hand in his face as long as I could, but he had the ability to stop on a dime, pull up and hit the shot. When I watched it go in, it was the agony of defeat. Those three seconds seemed like slow motion to watch him get that shot off and make that play. When you talk to Michael or anyone with the Bulls at that time, they will all say that shot was exactly what propelled them into their championships.”
The following season, 1989 – 1990, was known for some critical injuries to Daugherty and Nance, and a controversial trade. Wayne Embry took a major chance that never panned out, when he traded away young phenomenon, Ron Harper. On November 16, 1989, the Cavs traded Ron Harper and three future draft picks to the Los Angeles Clippers for Danny Ferry and Reggie Williams. It was a calculated risk based on of the large amount of hype surrounding Danny Ferry’s amateur career.
Danny Ferry went to Duke University after being considered one of the best high school athletes in America. He was voted Parade Magazine’s “Prep Player of the Year” from DeMatha Catholic High School in Maryland. Since Ferry played so well during his college basketball career, many considered him to be the next Larry Bird. He was a two time ACC player of the year, as well as, a 1989 NCAA All American first team member. Also that year, The USPI voted him the College Player of the Year. He was drafted by the Los Angeles Clippers as the second overall pick in the 1989 draft.
However, Ferry had no interest in ever playing for the Clippers. Instead, he chose to play in Europe for the Italian League. He continued to excel while playing in Europe, averaging 23 points a game. The Clippers eventually grew tired of waiting for Ferry to come home to play for them, so they traded his rights to the Cavs. Once Ferry agreed to play for Cleveland, Embry signed him a to a 10 year contract. Sadly for Cleveland fans everywhere, Ferry would go down as one of the biggest NBA busts of all time as he never lived up to his expectations. He only averaged double digits in scoring twice for his entire NBA career.
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