Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr has repeatedly slammed his team as soft after the Cleveland Cavaliers inflicted a 30-point defeat on the defending NBA champions.
The Cavaliers, playing in front of their home crowd in Quicken Loans Arena for the first time in the NBA Finals, were desperate after losing the first two games.
They jumped on the Warriors from the opening tip-off to take a 9-0 lead, extended it to 33-16 at the end of the first quarter and were never challenged.
The Cavaliers won 120-90 to cut the Warriors' lead in the best-of-seven series to 2-1.
"We weren't tough enough, we weren't strong enough with the ball, we were soft," Kerr told reporters.
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"When you're soft you get beat on the glass and you turn the ball over.
"We can't be soft in game four if we want to win."
Cavaliers' big man Tristan Thompson, with 14 points and 13 rebounds, outplayed the Warriors' Australian centre Andrew Bogut.
LeBron James, who had described game three as do or die, played as if that was the case, leading the Cavaliers with 32 points and 11 rebounds.
Cavaliers guards Kyrie Irving and JR Smith finally found their shooting stroke with 30 and 20 points respectively.
The 35-year-old Richard Jefferson, inserted into the starting lineup at forward after Kevin Love was ruled out with a concussion, was a success for the Cavaliers with nine points and eight rebounds.
In Sunday's game two in Oakland the Warriors crushed the Cavaliers 110-77, representing a 63 point turnaround in the game three result.
"We talked about effort for the last two days," Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue, explaining the reversal, said.
"Just being aggressive, playing hard, the physicality and we brought that.
"When we play that way we are tough to beat."
Steph Curry and Klay Thompson continue to be off target for the Warriors in the Finals, missing their first nine shots combined in game three before ending with 19 and 10 points respectively.
Thompson called out Cavaliers' centre Timofey Mozgov for kneeing him in the thigh in the second quarter.
Thompson was attempting to prevent Irving from cutting to the basket when Mozgov stepped into the key.
"It seemed kind of dirty to me," Thompson said.
In last year's finals Kerr made a major strategic move in game four when the Warriors trailed 1-2 to the Cavaliers by benching Bogut and inserting guard/forward Andre Iguodala into the starting line-up.
Kerr indicated he would keep Bogut in the starting line-up for Friday's game four in Cleveland.
"Boges has done a good job for us in the series," Kerr said.
Bogut had been in great form, but had just four points, two rebounds and one block in game three.
Cavaliers' back-up point guard Matthew Dellavedova appears to have fallen out of favour with Lue, with just two points in seven minutes on the court.
