A Retrospective of the LeBron James vs. Indiana Pacers Rivalry

LeBron James has left the Miami Heat. But that doesn’t mean LeBron James has left the Indiana Pacers/LeBron James rivalry.

The heated confrontations and animosity may have been born in South Beach, but it’s fair to say that they won’t disperse until the The King retires. There is just too much history, and the fans in Indiana still have a hatred that burns deep. Maybe not Knicks deep, but LeBron has left the Pacers for dead too many years in a row for the wounds to ever heal.

Tonight, LeBron makes his first return to Indiana since vacating Florida.

The stakes are different.

Much different.

As in, there are none: The Cleveland Cavaliers are surging towards the top of the Eastern Conference and the Pacers are terrible, hoping for a shot at the playoffs as opposed to this time last year when they were dead set on a Finals appearance.

So this game won’t mean much to the national audience.

But the Pacers badly need a win and these guys don’t want to lose to LeBron again — even in the regular season.

It is with this in mind that we look back at the rivalry that began in the 2012 and re-count some of its most memorable moments.

Did we miss your favorite? Add it in the comments at the end.

Next: LeBron vs. Indiana

Danny Granger’s Feistiness

by Ryan Barth

There is a lot to like about this video. Indiana is hosting a big-time playoff game, The Fieldhouse is packed full of yellow shirts, and a beautiful playoff rivalry is just beginning.

Best of all, the Pacers are getting after it.

Danny Granger definitely overreacts to a relatively harmless elbow from LeBron James after pulling his jersey from behind, but is intent on reminding the league’s best player he’s not going to back down. Finally, Lebron bricks the technical free throw, and you know Lance is beginning to wonder if he should start putting the choke sign on from the bench.

Danny continued to get in Lebron’s face that whole series, earning him several technical fouls and forcing Lebron to call his tactics “stupid.”

A lot of crazy stuff happened in this game.

Larry Bird received his Executive of the Year Award. Psycho T was making a big impact off the bench. Roy Hibbert went for 19 points an 18 rebounds. Dwyane Wade went after Erik Spoelstra during a timeout and forced teammates to restrain him.

It was all looking up on May 17, 2012 for our Pacers.

If only we could go back in time and replay the next few years again from there …

Next: The Layup

The LeBron James Game-Winner Hibbert Watched

by Jon Washburn

Whenever you get bounced from the postseason three straight times by the same team, there is going to be animosity.

Animosity takes different forms though.

As a Pacers fan, I despise Dwyane Wade for being a dirty player, for body checking a hapless Darren Collison, for sucking all year and then randomly hitting 3-pointers against the Pacers.

With LeBron? I just kind of hate that he always beats us.

Oh sure, he flops every now and then, and he whines to the refs constantly. But mostly, he just finds a way to kick Indiana’s butt every postseason and there’s nothing the Pacers can do about it.

The defining moment, to me, was the final two seconds against a Hibbert-less lineup from two years ago.

The Indiana Pacers had outplayed the Heat for large stretches, and Paul George was morphing into a superhero before our very eyes. Hibbert’s verticality was in full swing, David West was MISTER WEST, Lance was breaking out, and the Pacers were absolutely even with a team that had won 27-straight games and had been garnering “best team ever?” discussions for two months.

The Pacers had forced overtime in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Miami’s home court. And they led by 1 with 2.2 seconds to play.

Then, in a flash, LeBron erased it.

Paul George overplayed the pass and Roy Hibbert was improbably off the court, as Frank Vogel decided to put in smaller defenders who could switch out on jumpshooters.

Would Hibbert’s presence had mattered? I don’t know. I don’t really even care. Human beings shouldn’t be able to catch the ball sprinting in one direction, pivot, explode by the best wing defender in the league, and get to the rim in two seconds.

LeBron is not human. Every time I think about that play, I’m reminded of that small fact.

It never mattered how good the Pacers got – they were still mere humans vainly fighting against an immortal.

I eagerly await the return of PG, but there’s this dark, sad spot deep inside of me that fears it ultimately won’t matter as long as LeBron is still alive.

Next: Real Recognize Real

The Dap

by Ben Gibson

This is still one of my favorite moments as a basketball fan from the past few years. Paul George had the ball at the top of the key and made a hesitation move on Lebron James, freezing him just enough to get by the King.

As James tried to recover, Chris Anderson was a step late as well trying to protect the rim, leading to posterization and the foul.

This play, in the 2013 playoffs, is still the moment when you could say you knew Paul George would be one of the league’s next superstars. George being able to take one of the all-time greats in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals would have been worthy enough to remain in the minds of Indiana Pacers fans.

But what happened next made it, for me, an iconic playoff moment.

With Paul George guarding him from 29 feet out, LeBron returned the favor by knocking down a deep 3-pointer as the third quarter expired. The shot was impressive enough in its own right. What put it into the annals, though, was the dap at mid-court as the two players went to their benches.

It was a cool moment to see the two acknowledge the sequence of plays and non-verbally agree that it was awesome. The plays were over-the-top, but the subtle acknowledgement of what had transpired was perfect. It was as if LeBron was welcoming the young fella to his exclusive club.

Next: Lend Me Your Ear

Blowgate

by Ben Gibson

Lance Stephenson was always a divisive figure among Indiana Pacers fans. But the moment his antics finally jumped the shark is probably when most Indiana Pacers fans were out on Lance Stephenson. And it might have been when he lost the front office, too.

While it wasn’t the unspeakable act that some media blowhard made it out to be, it certainly summed up most people’s frustrations with Stephenson.

In the middle of Game 5 during the 2014 Eastern Conference finals, Lance Stephenson thought the smartest thing he could do was blow in the reigning MVP’s ear.

This was probably the lowest moment of the rivalry.

Indiana was sticking the landing on The Struggle, having barely made it to what had once seemed like an inevitable Eastern Conference finals rematch. They definitely showed some resolve by getting a victory in Game 1, but what came next — three straight wins by Miami — had all the makings of a gentleman’s sweep.

When Lance blew in LeBron’s ear, most NBA onlookers wondered why the Heat would even be gentlemanly about their beatdown of Indiana.

The Pacers would win Game 5 on the strength of an epic fourth quarter from Paul George, but the memes and tributes to Blowgate that followed were a reminder of how far the Pacers had fallen. And after Lance continued with his silly antics the next game, it came as little surprise that while the Pacers were subsequently blown out in Game 6.

Nor was it shocking to see the Pacers front office make such a half-hearted effort to retain Sir Lance-a-Lot the following offseason.

Next: PG's Quarter for the Ages

Paul George’s 21-Point Quarter

by Scott Stewart

Lebron James has always carried a “love him or hate him” aura, especially since his days in Miami. Having since moved back to Cleveland in the blockbuster deal of the summer Pacer fans won’t be any happier about facing him, as his return to the Central Division means playing him at least four times annually.

That’s now though.

Go back to a simpler time when it was just damned LeBron James and the wretched Miami Heat. The Pacers hated him. The state of Indiana hated him. Hell, most of the NBA fan base hated him. It wasn’t hard to see why either — teaming up with Dwyane Wade, the drama, the flopping, the list goes on and on.

But on May 28, 2014, Indiana got exactly what they wanted.

Indiana had worked all year to get the #1 seed they so desperately (thought they) needed, only for Indy to lose at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Game 1, effectively ending the entire quest for home-court advantage.

Game 5 came around and the Heat lead the series 3-1. There was a dour outlook in the Hoosier State, but it was in this game that the Pacers got LeBron where they wanted him – the bench. The Pacers managed to get LeBron in foul trouble early on, but even when he was on the court he was being wiped all over the floor by Paul George.

Indiana’s star went off that night, to say the least, scoring 21 of his game-high 37 points in the 4th quarter.

There wasn’t much LeBron to be found that night, but then again when it works in Indiana’s favor I don’t think they mind too much. When it comes to LeBron v. Indiana, this goes down as one of my favorite performances.

Next: 21 Points Not Enough

Paul George’s 21-Point Quarter, Part II

by William Furr 

Well before Game 5 of the 2014 Eastern Conference finals, Paul George had gone from being a terror on defense to a guy who showed signs of greatness. But doing so against the best player alive, in an elimination game was positively Miller-esque.

I haven’t seen a Pacers player perform like that in a clutch situation since Reggie himself, and Paul George never looked worried or frenetic. He spent the quarter staring down two future Hall of Famers (LeBron James and Dwyane Wade), shrugging his shoulders, and then scoring on them.

They knew it was coming, they knew PG was the only semblance of offense the Pacers had going for them at the moment, and it didn’t matter. He ripped them on D.  He dunked on Jesus Shuttlesworth after deking him in two different directions while outrunning the master of the chase-down block. He went positively Kobe/MJ on a turnaround fadeaway on the baseline. He hit contested 3s over both of them.

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The moment never looked too big for him; he just kept calmly setting fire to the Miami D, then walking away when he drove them to take timeouts to stop the bleeding.

We’ve seen plenty of players get hot in the fourth, but in the playoffs, in an elimination game, against the best player alive?  No way.

The rivalry won’t be the same when Cleveland comes to town.

The Miami/Pacers history isn’t there, and Paul George will be in his best “sitting on the bench for extended periods of time” attire. That’s sad, but I don’t think this rivalry is dead by any means.

Paul George will come back, and I don’t see him starting to be afraid of LeBron James.

Not after he has lit up the King for 21 points in the fourth quarter of an elimination game.

Next: 5 Players for the Pacers Trade Deadline Wish List