Lance Stephenson and his Indiana Pacers had a short postseason run as they were swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers. The defending NBA champions had no mercy and their goal was to get the first round done as soon as possible, which they achieved in only four games. Even though all four games were close, the Cavaliers did a much better job closing the games out, and LeBron James was simply astonishing, which was pointed out by Stephenson.
Stephenson is very competitive and he has a long history of rivalry with LeBron. He isn't afraid of matching up against the best player in the world, and he always gives his maximum effort.
However, despite his efforts to win games, rest of the team didn't seem to try as hard, which resulted in a quick sweep and a very early first-round exit for the Pacers.
Stephenson praised LeBron James
Despite their rivalry, Lance Stephenson had some words of praise for LeBron James and he gave him the credit for what he did in the series. Lance said that James was in attack mode and he did a great job finding an open man for a shot. "This is the best LeBron I've seen in this type of situations. I felt like he made the right decision everytime," the shooting guard said. Considering that Stephenson played against LeBron James in Miami, these comments mean a lot since James was at the top of his game back then.
It is also surprising that Lance decided to say these things about his rival, but it was definitely the right thing to do.
While it's obvious that they don't like each other, Stephenson and James respect each other's game and they were arguably the most important players on their respective teams during the first-round series.
Even though Paul George is the Pacers' superstar, it was Lance Stephenson who stayed consistently good, and he averaged 16.0 points on 50.9 percent shooting during the series.
Lance is disappointed with the Pacers
Stephenson said that he was relatively healthy during the series and didn't want to blame the outcome on his injury.
However, he pointed out that his team had a great chance to win some games, but they didn't give enough. This was evident in the third game of the series, when the Pacers blew a 26-point lead, allowing the Cavaliers to go up 3-0 against them.
The shooting guard also commented about his team and the next season, saying how they have a good roster, but they have to become more competitive. This was, according to him, one of the biggest flaws of the Indiana Pacers this season, and they definitely need to improve in that aspect.
