In the aftermath of the Pacers’ collapse in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals, Tyrese Haliburton told his team: This one is on me. For weeks Haliburton had been Indiana’s savior, engineering comeback after comeback, making one improbable shot after the next. His tentativeness in Game 3, however, allowed the Knicks to claw back into the series. Said Haliburton, “I got to do a better job.”
Haliburton did, and the result is Indiana is one win from the NBA Finals. Final score in Game 4: 130-121, Pacers over Knicks. Final stat line for Haliburton: 32 points, 15 assists, 12 rebounds and zero turnovers—never-before-seen numbers in an NBA playoff game. Four steals, too. He scored 20 in the first half, when Indiana needed a scorer. He handed out four assists in the third quarter, when the Pacers needed a playmaker. Late in the fourth, with New York surging, Haliburton flipped a bounce pass to ex-Knick Obi Toppin, who knocked down a game-sealing three.
“He was the leader tonight,” said Pacers coach Rick Carlisle.
Said Pascal Siakam, “He was everywhere.”
As much as any team in these playoffs, Indiana exemplifies team. The Pacers went 10 deep on Tuesday, defying, again, modern wisdom that insists rotations tighten in the postseason. It was a legit 10, too, not seven or eight with some garbage time minutes sprinkled in. Each Pacer who cracked Carlisle’s rotation played at least 10 minutes, from Tony Bradley (10) to Haliburton (38). This is how the Pacers were built, and Carlisle will be damned if he was going to change with the seasons.
“It’s tough talking about stats,” said Carlisle, “when it’s such a team thing right now.”
Last year Bennedict Mathurin watched the playoffs in street clothes, a shoulder injury ending his season in March. He was productive in the first two rounds of this postseason, only to see his role in the first three games of this series reduced. Before Indiana’s film session on Monday Carlisle noted a handful of players in the gym early. Mathurin was one of them. Stay ready, Carlisle told him. Mathurin was—he scored 20 points, including seven in the fourth quarter.
“You don’t have to get ready if you’re always ready,” said Mathurin. “I expect to go in the game. Obviously every night is not going to be the same. It’s really about whatever I can do to help my team win.”
Siakam has been here before. Further, even. Siakam is steeped in playoff experience and is the only Pacers player with a championship ring. He earned it in 2019, playing third fiddle to Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry, helping Toronto grind out its first title. He was a third-year player then, a wide-eyed 20-something who believed those days would last forever. He was hardened by the Raptors struggles in the years after, vowing that if he was ever in position to compete for a championship again, he wouldn’t take it for granted.
Indiana needed Siakam to be a second option when they acquired him last year, and he has delivered. He scored 30 points on Tuesday, the second time this series he has cracked 30. Forever lethal from midrange, Siakam has shot 40-plus percent from beyond the three-point line in each round this postseason. In the conference finals, he’s at 50%.
In a TNT postgame interview, Charles Barkley wondered why Siakam didn’t push for more touches. “That’s not who we are, man,” said Siakam. “It’s all about team for us.”
No player has had a more outsized impact on this series than Aaron Nesmith, the hero of Game 1, an efficient, two-way player in Game 2 and whose absence for a stretch of the second half of Game 3 is probably why confetti isn’t being swept up off the Gainbridge Fieldhouse floor. Carlisle admitted he was concerned about Nesmith’s availability after battling through an ankle injury on Sunday. “Really concerned,” said Carlisle. Round the clock treatment reduced the swelling. Red light therapy, stem machines, hyperbaric chamber, even some off duty icing by his mom, who was in town. “Anything you can think of, I was doing,” said Nesmith. On Tuesday morning Nesmith insisted he was good to go.
In Game 4, he was excellent. He scored 16 points on 5-of-9 shooting. He hounded Jalen Brunson the length of the floor. Brunson played well (31 points, five assists) but finished a minus-16. Nesmith was a plus-20.
“This is what we all live for,” said Nesmith. “This is what we prepare for our entire lives. These moments. I can’t miss these moments.”
A by-committee approach has paid dividends in Indiana, but there’s no doubt who is leading it. An energy coursed through Haliburton when he took the floor on Tuesday. After a passive Game 3, Haliburton was determined to be more aggressive. He had 15 points in the first quarter, connecting on all three of his threes. He pushed the team in transition (Indiana had 22 fast break points) and relentlessly attacked the rim.
“There’s some games that are good, there’s some games that are bad,” said Haliburton. “I’m just trying to play the right way and, in a time right now, I don’t have time to second guess my game or anything. All that’s out the window. It’s about winning and I feel like if I can take care of the ball, I put us in the best situation to win. And I feel like I did a good job of that today.”
It’s been a challenging year for Haliburton. He was a bystander during USA Basketball’s gold medal winning run last summer. This year he missed the All-Star game for the first time in three seasons. In April his peers—a handful of them, anyway—branded him overrated.
Haliburton has silenced the skeptics this postseason, making memorable shots against Milwaukee and Cleveland, realizing his Reggie Miller moment in Game 1 against New York. But he struggled in Game 3. “A little jittery,” Haliburton said. On Tuesday, he settled in. He led Indiana in rebounds and was the only player on either team to crack double digit assists. With his father John back in the building—John Halburton had been effectively banned since a regrettable on-court confrontation with Giannis Antetokounmpo at the end of the first round—Tyrese put on a show.
Haliburton downplayed his father’s return. “I’ll look at that later and reflect on that at a different time,” he said, adding, “My dad is just fine.” He got a charge out of seeing others in the building. Ex-Pacers like George Hill sitting courtside. “One of my vets,” said Haliburton. Al Harrington, Dale Davis and Roy Hibbert, among others, sprinkled throughout the arena. Knicks alumni are deeply involved with the team, routinely recognized on the big screens. It meant something to Haliburton to see so many Indiana alums doing the same.
“You think of all the guys who come before you and they’ve tried to help put this organization in a better place than they found it,” said Haliburton. “And that’s what I’m trying to do as well. And I know that might be cliché or might be weird, because it’s professional sports, it’s not college, it’s a business. But I do think the alumni being here is really special. I think that’s really cool to see throughout our league.”
New York alum will be there on Thursday, and make no mistake: Indiana’s toughest test awaits. The Pacers put the Knicks away at Madison Square Garden last season, thumping a battered New York team in Game 7 of the conference semifinals. This is a different Knicks team though, a stronger team, a mentally tougher team that will not go quietly. Play the game, not the series is the mantra of Tom Thibodeau and New York will hope its home crowd will help send this series back to Indiana.
“Their backs are against the wall,” said Haliburton. “They’re going to play as desperate as they can, as they should. They’re going to come out and throw a punch and throw more punches and more punches and we just got to be able to respond to those. I’m really proud of our effort. Got to be ready to go next game.”
Haliburton will. “One more,” said Haliburton as he made his way back to the Pacers locker room on Tuesday. One more game, one more win, one more chance to continue this story. No one is talking about the Olympics, about the regular season, about being overrated. But everyone is talking about Tyrese Haliburton.
