The NBA Finals are tied at a game apiece as the series heads to Indiana for Games 3 and 4. In one way, the Pacers are lucky to have stolen a game on the road, as they overcame a 16-point fourth-quarter deficit that culminated with yet another last-second game-winner from Tyrese Haliburton. On the other hand, the Pacers have been pulling a rabbit out of a hat all postseason, and what they did in Game 1 isn’t any different than the way they shocked the Bucks, Cavs and Knicks on the road to the Finals.
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Haliburton has been the straw that stirs the Pacers’ drink all postseason, and though he did add to his clutch legacy, his overall play in the Finals has been underwhelming, especially in the first halves of both games.
The Pacers are one of the deepest teams in the league, and they’ve won not just because of Haliburton’s heroics, but because everyone from Pascal Siakam to Ryan Nembhard to Aaron Nesmith has stepped up. Still, to compete with an Oklahoma City team that is just as deep, if not more so, the Pacers need Haliburton to assert himself more so that they don’t keep falling into big holes.
On today’s episode of Scott Van Pelt’s podcast, SVP and Stanford Steve spoke about the need for Haliburton to play more aggressively. Stanford Steve compared Hali’s usage rate, currently at 22, to guys who have carried past champions, such as Kobe Bryant and Giannis Antetokounmpo, who were in the mid-to-upper 30s and put the team on their back when they were needed most.
“I need more Haliburton. Where are you?” Stanford Steve asked. “Play with some urgency. We need you, it’s the Finals!”
Haliburton has acknowledged that he needs to do a better job of driving the ball and getting into the paint to break down the defense, but SVP asked and answering the pertinent question. “Who’s in charge of that? You are.”
There’s always the give-and-take of whether we should credit one team for shutting a player down, or call out said player for not stepping up. Given what the Thunder have done to Ja Morant, Anthony Edwards and basically everyone not named Nikola Jokic in these playoffs, it’s tough to be too harsh on Haliburton for struggling through the first two Finals games of his career.
Everyone bashing Hali right now is missing the fact that he’s not the kind of high-usage player he’s being compared to. Third in the league in assists, he’s a facilitator. He makes the entire Pacers engine run with his playmaking. Sometimes that means scoring, but it just as often means finding the open man and making the right play. His his 18.6 points per game ranked 41st in the league, after all.
Just because the Pacers got crushed in Game 2 doesn’t mean that they should roll over and die just yet. They proved in Game 1 that they could beat OKC, and that they could do it on the road when they weren’t even playing their best. Indiana turned the ball over 25 times and gave up 38 points to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in that game, yet still won in a place where the Thunder had won 86% of their games this year.
As the underdog in the series, the Pacers accomplished their mission in taking one of the first two on the road. Now they get to play the next two at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, a place where they’re 6-2 this postseason. This series is far from over, and Haliburton is nowhere near done yet.
