The Miracle of Richfield: How the Cavs' 1976 Season Captivated Cleveland

In the spring of 1976, for the first time in the Cavaliers’ brief history, the team was playoff-bound.

The Cavaliers were one of three expansion teams in 1970, and by far the worst. But the Cavs got better, year by year, thanks to players like Campy Russell, Austin Carr and Jim Chones.

But at the outset of the 1975-76 season, the Cavs were limping along at 6-11 when coach Bill Fitch made one of the most consequential deals in team history, bringing Akron native and Bowling Green graduate Nate Thurmond back to Northeast Ohio.

The trade was a catalyst for the team, which went 43-22 for the rest of the season, winning the Central Division. Automatically advancing the Cavs to the conference semifinals. Their opponent was the Washington Bullets, a tough team with three future Hall of Famers: Dave Bing, Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld.

The series, dubbed the Miracle of Richfield, was one for the ages. Almost 20,000 fans packed the Richfield Coliseum for each of the four home games, creating a raucous environment. Radio announcer Joe Tait became a beloved voice in Cleveland, calling one barnburner after another, as majority of the series was decided by five points or less.

It all came down to Game 7. Dick Snyder hit a floater to give the Cavs an 87-85 lead, and the Bullets missed their last shot. Fans stormed the court. The Cavs were headed to the Eastern Conference finals.

And then in the last practice before the Cavs would take on the Boston Celtics, Chones, the leading scorer for the Cavs against the Bullets, went up for a rebound. He came down … and heard a snap. He’d broken his foot and would be out for the series, which the Cavs lost in six games.

“There is no doubt we would have won the title that year,” Tait recalled years later in his autobiography.  

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