Tyrese Haliburton invites Pacers fan who had trash thrown at him in New York to Game 4
New York is a Knicks town, and that fan base has been starved for a winner for decades, getting fed mostly scraps in the James Dolan era. That has changed in the last couple of years, as the Jalen Brunson-led Knicks are winning — and New York went wild after the Knicks knocked off the Celtics to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since Shaq and Kobe started winning titles together.
That celebration turned on a fan, Hanz Perez, who wore Pacers gear in New York — the team the Knicks will face in the next round. It wasn't pretty.
Monday, Perez went on ESPN's 'The Pat McAfee Show' and talked about being a firefighter and a lifelong Pacers fan (complete with a Pacers tattoo on his arm). That's when Tyrese Haliburton joined the conversation and did what franchise icons do, stepping up and offering to fly Perez and a friend out to Indianapolis for Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
Tyrese Haliburton is flying out Pacers fan Hanz Perez to a playoff game after he was hit with trash in New York for wearing his jersey 🔥
(Via @PatMcAfeeShow )
pic.twitter.com/13cAskkBmj
'I personally wanna bring you and a plus one out to Indiana for game four..
Everybody in our organization wants to make sure that you're taken care of' ~ @TyHaliburton22 #PMSLive https://t.co/QN7dTplbIw pic.twitter.com/B8y1iqVO02
'Everybody in our organization wants to make sure you're taken care of. All the team's excited to meet you. It's all we've been talking about,' Haliburton said.
Well played by Haliburton and the Pacers.
Perez is in for what should be an intense, incredibly even game and series — this one is a genuine coin toss. In that case, the Pacers could use all the good karma they can get, and Haliburton got them some.
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Making four of those shots in a 47-day span is stunning. To do it during the playoffs? That's something else altogether. They instantly went viral on the internet. They were replayed on every sports show. They were visceral. They were digestible, leaving even people who don't care about sports with their mouths ajar. Haliubrton has slapped us all across the face with his superstardom. It's different from any other player's. Take Nikola Jokić, for example. You can watch him dominate for two hours and still be surprised that he had 20-plus points, 20-plus rebounds and 20-plus assists. His dominance is subtle, artful, easily overlooked. Perhaps the excitement of Haliburton's run this postseason can most easily be compared to the awe that Stephen Curry inspires when he has his famous shooting explosions. But we saw Curry's rise. When he led Golden State to their first championship in 40 years in 2015, the Warriors had the best record in the league that season. 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In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Pacers won after trailing the New York Knicks by 14 points in the final 3 minutes, The dagger: Haliubrton made a 3-pointer at the buzzer to send the game into overtime. In Game 1 of the Finals, the Pacers won after trailing the Oklahoma City Thunder by nine points in the final 3 minutes, The dagger: Haliubrton made a 21-footer with 0.3 seconds left. Haliburton's rise has quite simply been incomparable. To go from being considered the most overrated player in the league to the face of the postseason in fewer than two months? We've never seen anything like it. It's hard to define a superstar. Does a player need to win an MVP to deserve that classification? A championship? Do fans determine who gets that label? Do former superstars crown the next generation? This much is for sure: Haliburton has taken the basketball world by storm. We didn't even know to be watching for him. Now, we simply can't take our eyes off him. Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter @ melissarohlin . FOLLOW Follow your favorites to personalize your FOX Sports experience Tyrese Haliburton Indiana Pacers National Basketball Association recommended Get more from National Basketball Association Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
