It didn’t take long for Lance Stephenson to stir up some controversy in his return to the Pacers, as he caused a bit of a scuffle on Tuesday night in his first game back in Indiana when he made a last second layup with Indiana already up 15. That ruffled the feathers of the Raptors players and caused DeMar DeRozan and others to confront him on the court.
Yup Lance Stephenson is back,,,doing dumb stuff, making people mad pic.twitter.com/gi78JvoX2Y
— Gifdsports (@gifdsports) April 5, 2017
After the game, some of the Raptors players voiced their frustration with Lance’s antics, while Stephenson apologized in his post-game interview and said he just got caught up in the moment and emotions of the crowd chanting his name in his first game back. That could’ve been it, but Stephenson wasn’t quite done.
On Instagram, Stephenson pointed out the hypocrisy of the Raptors being upset, considering Norman Powell did the same thing to the Sixers last year, and on Snapchat, Stephenson trolled Toronto by wearing a throwback jersey in his story after the game.
https://twitter.com/TheMavsQueen/status/849473415677435904
Stephenson is, without a doubt, a starter on the NBA’s All-Petty team and I’m so happy Lance is back with the Pacers, because they’re the only team that’s found a way to embrace him and his antics. It’s not that Stephenson is a different person in a Pacers uniform, it’s just that he’s in a locker room with guys (particularly Indiana’s main guy, Paul George) that like him and aren’t thrown off when he goes full Lance.
That means he gets to be himself, which is part very good basketball player and part goof, but it seems to work.
There’s also a legitimate shot we get a Pacers-Raptors series, as the Pacers — tied in the log-jam for 8th in the East right now — are only 1.5 games behind the reeling Hawks for the 6-seed, which would meet the 3-seed Raptors (should they stay there) in the first round.
