Juwan Howard confronts Lance Stephenson during the warm-ups before Game - 4: NBA Playoffs Update
The series between Miami Heat and the Indiana Pacers is turning out to be the most intense so far in the playoffs. There have been confrontations between Danny Granger and LeBron James, Dwyane Wade has had his moments with Darren
Collison and the intensity reached its peak in game-3 when little known Pacers guard Lance Stephenson decided to hog some limelight by making choking gesture towards LeBron James as he missed a free throw.
After the Game 3, several videos of Lance Stephenson making a choke sign towards LeBron James went viral and although Lance later apologized, Juwan Howard decided to go confront him during the warm ups. The two, 18 years apart,
had to be separated by other Indiana players.
Stephenson has been getting on the nerves of several of Miami players by his trash talk from the bench during this series, but this incident seems to have a history.
The bad blood between these two players has been building up for quite some time and can be traced back to the altercation these two players had when Miami visited Indiana during the regular season back on March 26th,
which resulted in Juwan’s ejection.
Stephenson had come out and apologized firstly to LeBron and Miami team and then to his own coach Frank Vogel for bringing all the negative attention to the Pacers franchise. Vogel also admitted that Stephenson`s actions were
wrong, but praised Stevenson for admitting his mistake.
“He actually came to me before I could even get to him and apologized to me for being a distraction, for having it be in the media and on SportsCenter,” Vogel said. “He knows it was wrong. I agreed with him 100 percent that it
was wrong, not something that we condone”
This however did not stop Howard for going in pursuit of Stephenson and as soon as the Miami team arrived at the Bankers Life Field House for Game- 4, he went looking for Stephenson.
While the teams were warming up for the game, Howard walked towards the Pacers bench and had a one on one confrontation with Stephenson. The two players in question were standing chest to chest and were exchanging words with each
other before they had to be separated by other Pacers players.
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