INDIANAPOLIS — LeBron James was able to laugh about it afterward because his team won.
It could have mattered, though. The point the Pacers were handed because James lost his cool, only for an instant and only a few degrees past “warm,” could have been decisive instead of just another number on the wrong side of the final score.
It wasn’t, though. The Cavs won, 104-100, and evened their first-round playoff series at two games each, and James was able to explain with considerable humor the circumstances of his technical foul with 6:12 remaining in the game and Indiana ahead by two points.
It all came back to his weird rivalry with Lance Stephenson, the player who once blew in his ear on the court while the two were engaged in a 2014 playoff series and who, in this one, created a jump-ball situation and, when James let go of the ball after the whistle, held it aloft like it was the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
LEBRON VS. LANCE HAS REACHED ITS PEAK pic.twitter.com/hK98T4w7KL
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 23, 2018
But that’s not what led to the technical. On that, Indiana had taken the lead on Thaddeus Young’s tip-in off a missed Victor Oladipo layup. Cleveland called timeout, and Lance kept close company with James until the Cavs’ star reacted.
“I shouldn’t have gotten a tech in the first place,” James said. “Timeout called, and this guy’s following me to my bench. I give him a little nudge and he falls to half court. Come on. But I should know better. I should know better. I’ve been dealing with this since elementary.
“It's like, I tell you a joke. I tell you a joke, and you laugh. And you get caught. That’s what happened. Lance told me a joke, I laugh, teacher caught me. Now I got to go see the principal. So, that’s what happened.”
