Indiana Pacers guard Lance Stephenson stole the show in Game 4's Eastern Conference finals win over the Miami Heat, as his surprise performance was one of the highlights of the Pacers 99-92 win.
Not only did he score 20 points on 9-of-15 shooting, but he also managed to hold Heat star LeBron James to 24 points on 8-of-18 shooting before being fouled out late in the fourth with 56 seconds remaining in the game.
It was an even bigger surprise during the postgame interviews when Pacers coach Frank Vogel admitted that Stephenson requested to guard James before the game.
"He asked to guard him. He asked to guard him,'' said Vogel, seemingly really wanting to really emphasize that. "He's a competitor. We know Paul (George) is getting worn out a little bit guarding LeBron the whole game that he's in there. Lance said, 'Let me share some of the load.'''
Stephenson certainly lived up to the challenge of guarding James, but during the Heat's postgame interviews, James strongly disagreed with the foul calls made by officials, particularly his sixth foul late in the fourth.
"I didn't believe it was an offensive foul," he said about the last call. "I was going to set a screen, and I felt like I was stationary. ... Lance (Stephenson, the Pacers' guard) actually ran into me."
James also addressed a couple more fouls that he felt weren't the proper call. One of which came with two seconds left in the third quarter, after collecting a loose ball near the Pacers basket, he then swung both arms to protect it from the Pacers' David West and grazed the big man with his elbow. Though it was minimal contact, James was called for the foul.
"It was a couple of calls I didn't feel were fouls, personal fouls on me," he said, then tried to temper his complaints. "That's how the game goes sometimes."
James disapproval of the officiating comes just a day after he admitted to saying that flopping during game situations is "not even a bad thing."
Guys have been accustomed to doing it for years, and it's not even a bad thing. You're just trying to get the advantage. Any way you can get the advantage over an opponent to help your team win, then so be it." James said.
Flopping has been an issue the NBA has recently tried to rid itself of. During the regular season, the NBA issued flop warnings to 19 players, five of whom were fined for second offenses.
In the playoffs, there are no warnings for flopping and each player is fined accordingly; ranging from $5,000 to $30,000 depending on the number of offenses.
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