Doyel: Tyrese Haliburton's historic 2025 NBA playoff run has been borderline impossible

Indianapolis Star

5 hours ago

OKLAHOMA CITY – The statistics are as preposterous as the shots Tyrese Haliburton keeps hitting, one impossible rainbow after another, none of it making sense – not the stats, not the shots – as Haliburton and the 2025 Indiana Pacers continue to write their storybook postseason march into the 2025 NBA Finals, and perhaps beyond. Perhaps all the way to NBA immortality.
Haliburton is there already, authoring an individual postseason run we've never seen before. And before you do that thing people do and criticize – accuse someone of being a prisoner of the moment – ask yourself:
When have you seen anything like this?
Better yet, ask someone who's seen more basketball than you and me combined, Mark Boyle, the voice of the Pacers since 1988. Boyle was sitting courtside at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on April 29 as Haliburton blew past Giannis Antetokounmpo in the final second of Game in the first round. Haliburton's high-arcing scoop shot fell, and so did the Bucks in five games.
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Boyle was courtside in Cleveland on May 6 when Haliburton dribbled past Cavs defender Ty Jerome into the lane, then darted back and launched a 30-footer over his outstretched hand to win Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. Boyle was at Madison Square Garden on May 21 when Haliburton did something similar to Knicks center Mitchell Robinson in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, going into the lane and then turning around and dribbling back behind the key for a 23-footer at the buzzer. The shot bounced high off the rim as MSG exploded in happiness, then fell through the basket as the building went silent and the game went to overtime, where the Pacers won.
And Boyle was at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City on Thursday for Game 1 of these NBA Finals, when Haliburton dribbled Thunder defender Cason Wallace to the right before pulling up for a 21-footer that won the game with 0.3 seconds left.
It's absurd, what we're watching. When have you seen anything like this? That's what I'm asking Boyle, after first asking about the pressure of having to say something memorable, something extemporaneous, in the instant after every one of these Haliburton shots. Boyle shrugs about the pressure – he's been calling Pacers games for 37 years; whatever he says, he says – but he's not shrugging about the ride Haliburton is taking the Pacers, and the rest of us, through the 2025 NBA playoffs.
'I've seen things like this – but not at that volume,' Boyle says. 'In other words, Reggie (Miller) did some things, but Tyrese has done in a span of what – a few weeks? – he's done four things at minimum. I don't want to diminish anything Reggie did, or anything any of the greats ever did, but in my personal experience I have never seen anything like this because of the frequency and the short window.'
We've not even gotten to the stats yet, the numbers, that prove what we're watching isn't just fun or rare … but borderline impossible. Nor have we asked OKC defender Alex Caruso what it's like to be on the other side of this. Let's do both now.
You were promised the preposterous, and here it comes:
In the 2025 NBA playoffs, on shots in the final five seconds with a chance to tie the game or take the lead, everyone in NBA not named Tyrese Haliburton is 3-for-16.
Tyrese Haliburton is 4-for-4, according to ESPN.
You were promised the absurd, and here it comes:
This season alone, including the regular season and playoffs, Haliburton has attempted 15 shots to tie or take the lead in the final two minutes. He has made 13. For context, consider something. You're aware Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexnader was named NBA MVP this season, right? It's like this: SGA has attempted seven such shots all season – final two minutes, to tie the game or take the lead – and made exactly none of them. He's 0-for-7.
And Haliburton is 13-for-15?
I'm asking Boyle about it, and he's nodding.
'To put that into perspective,' he says, 'there are guys playing professional basketball – which means, great players – who could stand on a foul line in an empty gym and not hit 13 of 15.'
At this very moment Saturday, the day before Game 2, Paycom Center is mostly empty. The players are here, along with an international group of reporters, but the fans are gone. The place is mostly quiet. I'm asking Thunder guard Alex Caruso about this playoff run by Haliburton. Specifically, Alex: Can you remove yourself from the equation as his opponent, and just appreciate what we're all watching?
'Sure,' Caruso says. 'Yeah – I mean, he's a competitor. I know how good of a player he is. I've got respect for that, and through this run through the playoffs he's made some big shots and big plays. That's who he is.'
Haliburton has now hit a last-second shot to beat three of the four teams the Pacers have seen in the playoffs – Bucks, Cavs and Thunder – and his buzzer-beater at New York would've won that game had his toe been outside the 3-point arc. Either way, the shot forced overtime, where the Pacers won.
The poor guy charged with defending Haliburton in the final six seconds Thursday night of Game 1, Wallace, was asked if he was aware of that history this postseason.
'Yeah,' he said Saturday. 'That's what we told ourselves because we have seen it. We just didn't want to let it happen to us.'
You were promised the impossible, and here it comes:
In the last 20 postseasons, there have been seven comebacks where the eventual winning team had a win probability of less than one-fourth of 1 percent. The Pacers have three of those wins – all this postseason. And that doesn't include Game 1 against the Thunder, when 'all' the Pacers did was rally from a 15-point deficit in the final 9½ minutes, and a nine-point hole with 2:52 left., Their win probability at that point was a robust 2.3%.
Look at those four victories, and do the math. Well, here, Tom Haberstroh from Yahoo! Sports did it for you: The odds of one team pulling of all four of those comeback ever – to say nothing of doing all four within six weeks – is 1 in 17 billion.
One in 17 billion.
Your chance of winning the Powerball lottery is 1 in 300 million. Which means you're 57 times more likely to win, say, $200 million than the Pacers were to win those four games during this postseason. And to win those four games, it has taken a team effort clearly. Another statistic: In 33 minutes of 'clutch time' this postseason, the Pacers have committed just two turnovers. Down 10 points in the final seven minutes of Game 1 on Thursday night, the Pacers committed zero turnovers the rest of the way – and this was after they'd committed 25 turnovers in the first 41 minutes.
Takes a team to win those four games and overcome those 1-in-17 billion odds. But also, it take Haliburton. Because those were the four games where Haliburton hit his shot in the final second, or at the buzzer.
Haliburton hasn't talked much about the run he's one, and I'll be honest: We're not asking him about it. This feels like a no-hitter or even a perfect game we're watching. Who wants to be the one to jinx it? But Haliburton was asked Saturday about the NBA Finals, and these playoffs, in general.
'I'm just cherishing this moment,' he was saying Saturday, 'and just really enjoying what I'm doing right now.'
Here was Pacers center Myles Turner, Thursday night, after Haliburton's latest game-winner.
'He's a baller and a hooper and really just a gamer,' Turner said. 'When it come to the moments, he wants the ball. He wants to be the one to hit that shot. He doesn't shy away from the moment.
'He just keeps finding a way … and the rest is history.'
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Threads, or on BlueSky and Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar, or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar. Subscribe to the free weekly Doyel on Demand newsletter.