Indiana Pacers: Defining moments from the last 10 years
By Josh Wilson
Lance Stephenson blows in LeBron’s ear
In 2014, LeBron James and the Miami Heat seemed nearly invincible, until they met Lance Stephenson and a gust of his breath.
In Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Miami Heat could have finished the Pacers in Indiana and advanced to the NBA Finals
The Pacers and Heat had met a few times in this era already, and Indiana had never been able to get past James and the Heat in a postseason series.
Lance Stephenson was assigned to James, told to do anything and everything to slow him down. James was in his prime and seen as the nearly unstoppable villain of the league at the time.
Stephenson and the Pacers held James to 7 points — his only game below double-digit scoring in the 2014 playoffs — and won by three.
Boiled down to a moment, an ESPN camera caught Stephenson leaning down next to James during a break in the action and lightly blowing in James’s face. James gave a slight scoff, and it’s one of the weirdest moments in NBA history.
It was the perfect snapshot of Stephenson’s night. Tasked with being a nuisance to James and a deterrent to him having his way, this might not have been a display of strong defense or imposed will, but it did display his unrelenting devotion to his assignment for the evening.
The numbers don’t lie, though. James went 2-of-10 from the field and had five personal fouls in this game, and was clearly frustrated. The Pacers would force a Game 7, but James and the Heat responded with a 25-point win. James had 25 points, 4 rebounds, and 6 assists in Game 7, going 8-of-12 from the field.
A moment of weakness showed in Game 6, though, and Stephenson helped reveal the mortality of a seemingly invincible James. Did blowing on James’s face actually impact the game? Maybe not, but it was a clear snapshot of the great lengths Stephenson was willing to go in order to get inside his head and prevent him from scoring.
It may be silly, but this iconographic moment symbolizes the mid-2010 Pacers that were extremely hard to get by for LeBron James and the Heat.