Lance Stephenson butts into Miami Heat huddle (Video)

Are you ready for 24 hours of Lance Stephenson talk?

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You better be, and you better be ready to have a hot take on Stephenson, his trash talk, his antics, and what role they played in game five of the Eastern Conference Finals.

To varying degrees of relevance, the pot-stirring wing-man for the Indiana Pacers has his fingerprints all over this game. He talked significant junk leading up to the game, to LeBron James and other members of the Miami Heat. He then was the catalyst for contentious plays with Dwyane Wade and James, including the play during which James committed his fifth foul of the game.

To top things off, Stephenson even got up in the business of Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra. As the team broke huddle from a timeout, Stephenson butted in and listened to the final instructions for his opponents.

Vine courtesy of Michael Shamburger

Now anybody who has watched a nationally televised NBA game and heard the platitudes and cliches offered by mic’ed up coaches during timeouts knows that Stephenson was unlikely to intercept any trade secrets with these antics. That said, they are still the kind of antics that will bug an opponent, especially when that opponent is losing the game in question.

With a Pacers victory, Stephenson has positioned himself to be one of the talking points of this game. That is not necessarily because of his play on the court as much as it is the non-basketball things he did to bug the Heat. That said, he is unquestionably a key contributor and he will need to be in the mix again if the Pacers hope to win game six.

Maybe just not in the Miami huddle.

h/t the Big Lead

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