Not surprisingly, controversy emerged early in Game 7 between the Indiana Pacers and Cleveland Browns, and Lance Stephenson was in the middle of it.
Late in the first quarter, LeBron James’ nemesis was T’d up by the refs for doing something that seemed innocuous enough. He accidentally brushed James’ head with his arm going up for a block.
See for yourself.
Lance got T'd up for this pic.twitter.com/rKDcpK3rd4
— ESPN (@espn) April 29, 2018
It really seems like a huge overreaction by the refs here to give Stephenson a technical. Pretty much everyone watching agreed that he was going for the ball, and that the impact to James’ head was minimal, despite his A+ acting job. But the refs ruled it a dead ball technical because he had been hit with a foul before this and the play was officially dead. Yet James didn’t stop going to the hoop, either.
First Lance gets a ghost foul called on him for standing too close to Lebron then gets a deadball technical for not letting him get continuation. #LebronRules pic.twitter.com/P1iZrUs52l
— mike (@mikeflowry) April 29, 2018
Twitter had some strong responses to it all.
Lance Stephenson getting a technical for touching LeBron's bald spot #Pacers
— Kiaan Fayaz (@kiaanfayaz) April 29, 2018
The NBA likes to tell you how great and tough playoff basketball is, but then calls a technical on a man for playing tough defense. LeBron didn’t stop, why should Lance have?
— Gregg Torlone (@GTorlone) April 29, 2018
This was called a technical foul bc Lance gives LeBron a tough time.. it's game 7 and the officials are gonna do whatever it takes to get the Cavs into the next round https://t.co/xDeoa4ZnRP
— C.Kelley 🐬🐬⬆️ (@colbykobe84) April 29, 2018
https://twitter.com/Mr_Grubie/status/990646112217419777
So that was a dead ball technical on lance. Lebron gets to keep playing but Lance has to stop. @NBA your rules are garbage
— Grant (@gcampbell_soup) April 29, 2018
In this case, we couldn’t agree more.