Lance Stephenson Gave Us The Full Born Ready Experience In His Return To Indiana

There is something about Lance Stephenson that makes him resonate with Pacers fans in a big way. During his return to Indiana on Tuesday – his first home game with the team since he signed a 3-year contract with them last week – the crowd was so happy to see him that he received a standing ovation as he checked in for the first time against the Raptors.

From there, we got the full Born Ready experience. Stephenson, whose first stint with the team ran from 2010-14, showed the creative genius that’s so tantalizing, along with the immaturity that gets under the skin of everyone.

Let’s start with the highlights. First, enjoy this sequence where he made DeMar DeRozan dance, blew by him, and dropped a dime to Thad Young, who converted an easy layup that was there largely because Stephenson pulled Jonas Valanciunas away from the hoop.

There was also this corner three that more or less sealed the victory for the Pacers, which led to the tiniest bit of showboating.

As for the bad, well, let’s just say that Stephenson is probably going to get an earful from a teammate for this one. The Pacers were up 15 with a few seconds left, and only needed to run the clock out to get the win. Instead, Stephenson moseyed on into the lane without any resistance and converted a layup. This led to DeRozan, P.J. Tucker, and DeMarre Carroll getting into Stephenson’s face and the two teams getting into a small scuffle.

This is the best and worst of Stephenson – a player who mixes absolute brilliance with poor decision making. As a reflection of this, we turned to Twitter, which was all over the place due to Stephenson’s antics.

https://twitter.com/PacerBadBois/status/849432362958061569

Oh, and to see what Stephenson means to the Pacers, let’s turn to Paul George.

https://twitter.com/its_whitney/status/849432931848290305

Stephenson ended the night with 12 points in 25 minutes off the bench as the Pacers came back from a 19-point first-half deficit to win, 108-90.