CLEVELAND, Ohio - A dejected Cleveland Cavaliers squad sauntered to the visiting locker room Sunday with heads lowered and no one saying a word.

The sounds of celebratory cheers echoing from the Golden State faithful made their way into the players' sanctuary, making the 33-point pounding the Cavs endured at Oracle even more insufferable.

Sources with knowledge of the proceedings shared the postgame details with cleveland.com.

Following a loss, head coach Tyronn Lue typically chooses to address his team the next morning to eliminate raw emotion, and that evening was no different. He saw how hard his guys were handling the fact that they were in a 0-2 NBA Finals deficit. Also on their minds was the uncertainty of Kevin Love and his concussion.

They were beat up mentally, physically and spiritually.

Lue could tell that his players just wanted out of there. He walked toward the middle of the locker room and called for his guys to bring it in. The players came over and extended their arms, but before they could break, an unlikely voice asked Lue if he could have a few words, and the head coach obliged.

Assistant coach Phil Handy, who happens to be a native of Oakland, erupted with a profanity-laced tirade, questioning their toughness and the lack of fight they displayed on such a grand stage. The players were shocked. Handy is relatively quiet. In Handy's outburst that lasted a few minutes, his overall message was clear and to the point: You guys were punked and you did absolutely nothing about it.

Cavs assistant coach Phil Handy, left, works out with center Timofey Mozgov during a practice. Handy, an Oakland native, had some tough words for the Cavs after their NBA Finals Game 2 loss, and it helped turn the tables for a Game 3 Cavs win Wednesday night.

That message was candid and straightforward during what was a highly frustrating period, but it was well received.

"He's an Oakland boy, and we went out to Oakland and got our ass whipped twice," Cavs forward Richard Jefferson told cleveland.com. "He was pissed off. He has to show up there every day. It means a lot to him, it means a lot to us, and for us to go out there and play the way we did was embarrassing. Look, we personally feel that no team should handle us the way they did the last two games, and it was disrespectful."

Players said Handy's rant stayed with them in the days leading up to Wednesday's Game 3 in Cleveland, and it showed.

The Cavaliers returned the favor and annihilated the Warriors on Wednesday night, 120-90. The very team that was smiling, dancing, celebrating and discussing in the middle of the series how it would fare against the "Showtime" Los Angeles Lakers was suddenly on the defensive.

The back-to-back MVP was anything but an MVP. Stephen Curry was draped with a swarm of defenders and could not create enough separation in isolation sets to get off quality shots. He was held to two points at the half. He scored 17 in the second half, but the game was already out of reach.

Instead of making plays for his team, he turned it over a game-high six times in 31 minutes. LeBron James took on the assignment of defending Draymond Green, the Warriors' engine. Green went for a game-high 28 points Sunday, but only managed to score half a dozen on this occasion.

The Warriors didn't commit 18 turnovers; the Cavaliers took the ball 18 times. They were the aggressors, and the road team couldn't adjust to the physical play. When those "50-50" balls were loose, the Cavaliers had bodies on the floor and wrestled them away.

The defending champs were overwhelmed by the Cavaliers' physicality, their desperation, the thunderous environment and most importantly their fight. The Cavs didn't play like punks on this night.

"Sometimes you need somebody to remind you of who you are," the Cavs' Channing Frye told cleveland.com in regards to Handy's message. "Sometimes you get caught up in the moment instead of being reminded of how hard it took to get here and the work you put in to get here. You saw it today. You saw the big difference."

Golden State had better toughen up. They're not the only ones representing Oakland. Handy made sure that message was relayed on Sunday.

"It definitely wasn't normal [for Handy to call them out]," Jefferson told 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."