Doyel: After pulling rabbit from Game 1 hat, Tyrese Haliburton disappeared much of Game 2

Indianapolis Star

3 hours ago

OKLAHOMA CITY – This is the Tyrese Haliburton experience: Sometimes, most of the time, he pulls a rabbit out of a hat. But sometimes, other times, he makes himself disappear. Don't try to understand it, because he doesn't. If he did, you think this would happen? Those first three-plus quarters of the Indiana Pacers' 123-107 loss to Oklahoma City in Game 2 of the 2025 NBA Finals?
'I have to do a better job of figuring out where I can be better,' the Pacers All-Star guard said after the Thunder evened the series at 1-1, with the NBA Finals shifting to Gainbridge Fieldhouse this week for Game 3 and Game 4.
Through those first 39 minutes Sunday, Haliburton was all but invisible: five points, three rebounds, five assists, five turnovers. The Thunder led 98-76, and this game was over. Yes, even against the Pacers, who have made the impossible look routine during these playoffs — winning a combination of four games, one in each series, that as a parlay would've had odds of 1 in 17 billion. In those four wins, late-game comebacks against the Bucks, Cavaliers, Knicks and then Thunder in Game 1 on Thursday, Haliburton hit the key shot: game-winners against Milwaukee, Cleveland and Oklahoma City, and a buzzer-beater to force overtime at New York.
That's the magic of Haliburton, the way he makes the hardest shots look easy, over and over. In shots to tie the score or take the lead in the final five seconds of these 2025 NBA playoffs, the rest of the league is a combined 3-for-16. Haliburton is 4-for-4.
Magical. And it keeps happening. Counting the regular season, in the game's final two minutes on shots to tie or take the lead, Haliburton is 13-for-15. These aren't free throws, but contested field goals against NBA defenses desperate to stop him. And he's 13-for-15?
Abracadabra!
But every so often, and if there's a trend, it's this — it happens after one of his special games — Haliburton disappears.
Poof.
But this game Sunday night, Game 2 of these NBA Finals, this was different than the disappearances that have come before. And there haven't been that many disappearances by Haliburton. It's fair to note that. It's also fair to note that, as the unquestioned star of this team, he can't afford to disappear … ever. And most NBA stars don't disappear. Put it like this: After Game 2, when OKC's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 34 points for his 13th game with at least 30 points in these playoffs — the most since Giannis Antetokounmpo had 13 such games in 2021 – Pacers coach Rick Carlisle noted SGA's metronomic consistency.
'Shai,' Carlisle said, 'you can mark down 34 points before they even get on the plane.'
Haliburton, you can't do that. There was Game 2 in the Eastern Conference semifinals against Cleveland, when he had four points and five assists after his buzzer-beater in Game 1. And there was Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals against New York, when he had eight points, two rebounds and six assists after his 32-12-and-15 masterpiece of a triple-double in Game 4.
Then came Sunday night in OKC, when Haliburton followed his latest game-winner from Game 1 by fizzling for the first 39 minutes as Game 2 got so far away, not even the Pacers could come back. With about 5½ minutes left, Carlisle waved the surrender flag by sending rookie Johnny Furphy to the scorer's table to replace Haliburton.
But as I said, this was different from Haliburton's handful of disappearances that came before.
Because after the 39-minute mark, with the Pacers down 22, with the game over, Haliburton went from fizzling to sizzling. You can say it doesn't matter, but did you see what OKC coach Mark Daigneault did?
Seemed to matter to him.
It starts for Haliburton with a baseline floater with 9:30 left. The Pacers are within 20. What does it matter, right?
For most of 39 minutes, the Thunder have assigned NBA All-Defensive team ace Luguentz Dort to Haliburton. Dort is a menace, a tenacious physical marvel who goes 6-4, 220 pounds with the quick feet of someone much smaller. And Dort is following Haliburton for most of 94 feet, just getting in his face, his space, being physical and daring officials to blow their whistle on a night the tweets go mostly silent.
Twenty-seven seconds later, Haliburton dribbles Dort into a 17-footer. It goes down, and now Haliburton has found something. Next time down he has the ball, hunting the rim, getting a screen and going to the basket for a dunk. Then he dribbles into a 30-footer, a 3-pointer. He has now made four straight shots and scored nine consecutive points for the Pacers, all in about 90 seconds, but the Pacers still trail by 19 — they can't stop anybody — and when Haliburton misses a 3-pointer it appears as if the spell is over. Here comes Furphy, walking to the scorer's table.
Only now, it's about to get silly.
Pacers guard T.J. McConnell is driving the baseline, like he does, and looking for a teammate, as he does, and spotting Haliburton behind him. McConnell throws it that way and Haliburton chases down the ball in the corner before launching a running 3-pointer as he heads out of bounds. The shot falls.
In about an hour, long after Paycom Center has emptied out, Haliburton will sit down with reporters and talk about some things, mainly how poorly he played, but he dropped in this fascinating little nugget about those 12 points he scored in about five minutes of the fourth quarter.
'When you're down by so much,' he was saying, 'you can choose to just take the game for (the blowout) it is and just be done — or try to continue to learn different things.'
Haliburton was learning, and Daigneault was watching. He sees what's happening. This game has been over for some time, but he's already planning for Game 3. He sees Haliburton heating up, getting that confidence that comes when he's having one of those magical nights, and he wants no part of this.
Daigneault calls timeout, just to stop the clock. Just so Furphy can come in, and Haliburton can go out.
Still think that sizzling stretch, in a blowout loss, doesn't matter? Not so sure.
Carlisle wasn't having any discussion about Tyrese Haliburton's first 39 minutes. That's when the game got away from the Pacers, but is that why? Someone asks Carlisle about Haliburton, who 'struggled to get engaged.' Carlisle doesn't want to hear it.
'There's a lot more to the game than just scoring,' he said. 'Everybody's got to do more. It starts with the best players. It starts with, you know, Tyrese and Pascal (Siakam, 15 points) and Myles (Turner, 16 points), and then it goes from there.
'People shouldn't just look at (Haliburton's) points and assists and judge how he played, or judge how any of our guys played just on that. That's just not — that's not how our team is built. I mean, we are an ecosystem that has to function together. We've got to score enough points to win the game, but who gets them and how they get them, not important.'
Was he speaking 100% truth, or was Carlisle sending a message to Haliburton — not your fault — as he, like Daigneault earlier in the evening, was looking ahead to Game 3 on Wednesday night? Only Carlisle knows, but everyone was acknowledging this:
The Pacers, for the second consecutive game, didn't come out with enough force, attitude, disposition, care — buzzwords for effort, but don't say that word, people get offended! The Pacers trailed by double figures (25-15) in the first quarter of Game 1, and were down 57-45 at halftime, and the same thing basically happened in Game 2: They trailed by double figures early in the second quarter (33-23), and then the game got ugly. The Thunder led 52-29 before halftime, and the Pacers never got closer than 13.
'Another bad first half,' Carlisle said, and no need to wonder if this was 100% truth or message-sending, because it was both. 'Obviously it was a big problem.'
Haliburton was ineffective in the first half on both nights.
Game 1: Six points, three assists, three turnovers.
Game 2: Three points, three assists, two turnovers.
'I think I've had two really poor first halves,' Haliburton said after Game 2. 'I just have to figure out how to be better earlier in games.'
Haliburton's game-winner in Game 1 overshadowed a game where he had 14 points and six assists, well below his season averages of 18.6 ppg and 9.2 apg, and his hot fourth quarter in Game 2 allowed him to finish with 17 points on a night where, as I said, it was more fizzle than sizzle: 17 points, three rebounds, six assists and five turnovers, tied for his most through 18 playoff games.
'I had some really dumb turnovers tonight,' Haliburton said. 'They're kind of showing like a soft blitz, sometimes a full blitz. They're giving me different looks.'
It can be confusing, especially against a physical and aggressive menace like Lu Dort, but Haliburton seemed to figure something out there in the fourth quarter. It could bode well for the Pacers, who come back to Downtown Indianapolis having stolen homecourt advantage from the heavily favored Thunder thanks to that Game 1 victory. If Haliburton figured something out, and it carries over to Game 3, maybe we get this: Abracadabra!
If not, if the poor starts carry over, if the Thunder's overall defensive domination continues, we could get this:
Poof.
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.