Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers have knocked the Boston Celtics out of the In-Season Tournament following their Quarter-Finals win in Indy. The 122-112 win from the Pacers led to Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and the rest of the ‘Inside the NBA’ crew to give their thoughts on what transpired. Of course, it was Indiana’s league-leading offense that took center stage and Shaq, in an effort to point this out, hilariously made quite the obvious observation, resulting in Chuck calling him out for it.
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“As I said earlier, when you’re leading the league in scoring, we know you can score,” said O’Neal. This prompted Chuck to immediately hit him back with, “Good job Captain Obvious.”
Shaq, being as professional as he could, continued on with his take, saying, “If you have timely stops, you always have a chance to win. Tied at 105 and you go on a 9-0 run. How do you go on a 9-0 run? You get stops. If they can get stops, timely stops, they definitely have a chance.”
However, after he finished speaking, he did hold his patented 4 fingers to Chuck, signifying that he knows what he’s talking about because of his 4 rings. In all fairness, he isn’t wrong in his take as the Pacers have a blistering 123.6 offensive rating, nearly 4 points higher than the 2nd place 76ers. Unfortunately, their defensive rating is a putrid 120.2 which is good for 28th in the league.
Charles Barkley had his own take on why the Pacers played hard
Before Shaq got into why he thought the Pacers won the game and played as hard as they did, Charles Barkley stepped up to the plate and gave his thoughts on the matter. According to him, Tyrese Haliburton and the crew were excited about seeing themselves on national television.
“They were so excited to be on national television. That’s what it felt like to me because we don’t show the Pacers. The energy level was like, ‘We get to show people that we got a really good team.’ This is the first time we’ve ever come close to showing the Pacers.”
Haliburton’s 26-13-10 triple double carried the Pacers offense tonight en route to the first ever In-Season tournament quarterfinals victory in NBA history. After the game, he even admitted that he was having difficulty breathing as he had to get out his inhaler at half-time. Though, as the game progressed, it was clear that he got into a great rhythm and never looked back.
