"Yall dug this hole, then get out of it" - The Phil Jackson tactic Lue used with LeBron and the Cavaliers

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Before he became a championship coach, Tyronn Lue played three years under the legendary Phil Jackson. These were formative years for Lue as a player and a future coach.

After all, the 'Zen Master' had a beefy resume then. Jackson’s coaching style, too, was considered unique, as he employed seemingly unorthodox tactics to motivate his players. When it was time for Tyronn to be a head coach, he inevitably picked up some of these things from Phil. One of them was not to call a timeout when his team expected him to.

I’m not bailing you out

In a regular-season game in the 2015-16 NBA season, Lue remained seated as the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 11-point lead dwindled to one. Ty wouldn’t call a timeout to kill the opposing team’s momentum. He had no intention of drawing up a play to save his team.

"They was looking to me to bail them out," Lue said, per ESPN. "And I know I'm not in a position this early in my career, but I wouldn't call a timeout. And I wouldn't even look at them. I was like, ‘Y'all dug this hole, then get out of it.'"

Tyronn admitted he got the tactic from Phil, though he acknowledged he’s nowhere near the 'Zen Master’s' stature. He understood the logic behind this strategy, and the former Lakers guard wanted his team to be responsible on the court.

“So I just wanted them guys to understand that and then figure it out. And then we kind of got it back in the fourth quarter,” Lue said.

Kevin Love understood Tyronn's tactics completely. Head coaches are usually seen as the scapegoats, but the reality is that the five players on the floor have more control over the game than the one guy on the sidelines.

"He wanted us to figure it out," said Love. "He's been doing that. I know we've only had a little bit of practice time, but he puts us in situations where we have to think and we have to kind of be learning on the fly. And that doesn't just happen in games, but in game-type situations like this. It's part of us in the maturation process and growing up."

Half-court shooting tactics

Lue’s talent for coaching was on full display in the 2016 NBA Finals. Tyronn was faced with the colossal task of pulling the Cleveland Cavaliers from a 3-1 deficit against a 73-win team.

According to the Missouri native, he didn’t show his team film after the loss, especially in Games 1 and 2, where they were beaten by double digits. This seems counterintuitive, but according to Lue, such an exercise is demoralizing. Instead, he did fun stuff with LeBron James and the crew.

“So when I come in, we shoot half-court shots, we do stuff that’s fun,” Ty said. “And we finally won that one game. And I would go back and show like from Game 1 and 2 what we needed to do better, we got to take away this. We lost Game 4, I didn’t show film. We shot half-court shots.”

While it helped that a guy named LeBron was on his team, Lue played a big part in that historic 3-1 comeback. Being a head coach isn’t all about mastering the X’s and O’s. It’s also about understanding human behavior and tendencies.