How Rick Carlisle and Tyrese Haliburton evolved to lead Pacers to NBA title contention

New York Times

5 hours ago

Rick Carlisle has been around the NBA long enough to see what's over the horizon.
When the now-65-year-old began his second head-coaching stint with the Indiana Pacers in June 2021, he could tell the league was undergoing a paradigm shift.
The prior decade was defined by LeBron James and Steph Curry forging a superstar era that left little room for anyone else to hold the Larry O'Brien trophy. But the league's titans were beginning to age out of contention, and the NBA's burgeoning parity era was forming a superstar vacuum that would open up new ideas of roster construction.
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So Carlisle had a bold idea that has now become fundamental for many of the league's top teams: He wanted to toss out the playbook.
He returned to Indiana, preaching that multi-step play sets were going to look archaic in a few years. In a sit-down with The Athletic in Dec. 2021, Carlisle explained how he envisioned a future where he didn't call plays at all. He wanted the team to live in its 'flow game.'
'I think there's a balance that you always want to strike with your best players so that they don't become this guy that just does one thing,' Carlisle said in that interview.
Two months before the franchise-changing acquisition of Tyrese Haliburton, Carlisle was already preaching the high-octane system that would power the Pacers' Cinderella NBA Finals run three-and-a-half years later. It didn't make sense for his lineup at that moment, but Carlisle was priming the organization for a change he knew would come sooner or later.
Carlisle's vision, which has manifested in this blistering Pacers system based on reads and principles rather than convoluted plays, needed a conductor to bring it harmony. That was going to be a tall task for a coach who has clashed with a litany of point guards in his two-decade coaching career, including several with Hall of Fame credentials.
In Haliburton, Carlisle has found his maestro.
The coach and star guard came together at the perfect moment, with Carlisle looking for a partner he could trust and Haliburton seeking to learn from a fresh start after the Sacramento Kings discarded him. Haliburton brought bravado without ego. He was malleable, but worthy of autonomy in due time.
'He came into this really leaning into the opportunity,' Carlisle said. 'New start, I'm all in from day one, I'm going full bore, I want to learn, coach me hard. I know there's going to be ups and downs. I'm gonna navigate it. He's a guy you can always talk to about the hard times and the good times.'
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Through all the ups and downs Haliburton faced this year — including mental health struggles — Carlisle's belief in him never wavered. Carlisle pounded the pulpit when Haliburton was named the league's most overrated player in The Athletic's anonymous player poll in April. His guard responded with one of the great clutch runs in the history of the game.
Haliburton has finally found his place within his team and the league, and it's the driving force behind the Pacers' genuine title hopes.
'I think that it got to the point for me where when you're young, establishing yourself in the NBA, you're kind of working your way through things and trying to figure out where you stand in the league,' Haliburton told The Athletic. 'Where I'm at now, I'm really comfortable in my own skin. I feel like I've really started to establish myself in this league.'
How did Carlisle, a coach who has long built great offenses while failing to forge healthy working relationships with the point guards tasked with running them, give Haliburton more trust on the court than just about any player he's ever coached? It all traces back to Jason Kidd.
Before the Dallas Mavericks traded for Kidd in 2008, Carlisle was known for meticulously commanding every possession, slowing the pace down so he could keep his fingers on every dial of the offense. The high point of his first stint with the Pacers was in the 2003-04 season, when he ushered a core of Jermaine O'Neal, Ron Artest (now Metta World Peace) and Reggie Miller to the conference finals. Those teams were lucky to score more than 80 points in an era defined by methodical play sets and cramped spacing. They fell to the eventual champion Detroit Pistons, a team Carlisle coached in a similar manner the prior two seasons.
In hindsight, Carlisle's approach made sense for that era and the roster he was gifted. If there is one through-line to Carlisle's career, it's his ability to adapt to the evolution of the game.
But when Carlisle was hired as the Mavericks coach a few months after the franchise's trade for Kidd, he brought with him a more controlled coaching style. That didn't sit well with Kidd, and the two butted heads over who and how to run the show. The coach was still calling just about every play, but Kidd felt that as the league's best point guard over the past decade, he had earned the right to make the right decisions quickly and in the flow.
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Over time, Carlisle learned to trust Kidd and let go of the rope. He embraced the uptempo freedom that came with his guard orchestrating the offense on the fly, proudly declaring the Mavericks were running a 'flow' offense that was an early prototype of what the Pacers run today. That system led to Dallas' 2011 title in Carlisle's third season with Kidd.
'I've learned so much over the years about players that appear to have quirky elements to their game and the importance of looking at what they can do and not focusing on what they may not be able to do particularly well,' Carlisle told reporters before the finals. 'It was clear when we got Ty that we needed to surround him with shooting, with toughness and depth and resources.'
The championship did not mark the end of Carlisle's feuds with his lead guards. Rajon Rondo, a one-time champion and two-time assist-per-game leader, flamed out in brief and disastrous fashion after arriving from the Celtics in a midseason trade in 2014. Carlisle learned from his time with Kidd and wanted Rondo to push the tempo rather than slowing it down. An on-court argument between the two led to a one-game suspension during the regular season. Then, Carlisle benched Rondo in the middle of the playoffs and later conceded the trade was a mistake.
Years later, Carlisle's relationship with lottery pick Dennis Smith Jr. grew icy as the coach turned more of Dallas' offense over to rookie sensation Luka Dončić. And while Carlisle's partnership with the Slovenian star led to historic offensive numbers on the court, the two never quite meshed off it. Then Carlisle was replaced by Kidd, of all people.
Those experiences made Carlisle more open-minded to finding his ideal fit in Haliburton.
When Haliburton arrived in Indiana from the Sacramento Kings, he was a hard player to value. He didn't break defenders down off the dribble like most stars do, but there was something to the way he moved around the court without losing momentum, whether on or off the ball. He'd commit the cardinal sin of leaving his feet to read the floor, but made it work more often than not.
Carlisle was willing to embrace Haliburton's faults because his style of play was a step in the right direction compared to the limitations of the roster Carlisle worked with earlier that season.
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'I've learned so much over the years about players that appear to have quirky elements to their game and the importance of looking at what they can do and not focusing on what they may not be able to do particularly well,' Carlisle told reporters before the finals. 'It was clear when we got Ty that we needed to surround him with shooting, with toughness and depth and resources.'
Before the trade for Haliburton, Domantas Sabonis was Carlisle's key playmaker, operating out of the high post. But with Sabonis at the five and current center Myles Turner at the four, the Pacers could not play with the pace needed to bring Carlisle's free-flowing vision to life. Carlisle pushed Sabonis to roll to the rim and then flow out to the corners if the ball didn't find him, but the center was a poor shooter at the time and preferred to be directly involved in plays.
When The Athletic reported the Pacers were considering blowing up their team in Dec. 2021, Carlisle and team president Kevin Pritchard called an emergency meeting with Sabonis, Turner, wing Caris LeVert and point guard Malcolm Brogdon. They addressed the report and told the players they weren't planning on making serious changes at that moment. By the start of the next season, Turner was the only one left.
Those trades yielded key pieces of this season's run, such as Aaron Nesmith and draft picks that turned into Andrew Nembhard and Ben Sheppard. The Haliburton deal also included the since-departed Buddy Hield, whose leadership was instrumental to the development of Carlisle's system and Haliburton in particular.
Though the Pacers' playoff hopes were already out the window upon Haliburton's arrival, it was immediately apparent he was the right fit for Carlisle's revolution. Carlisle wanted to find players who knew how to craft a story on the fly in unlimited ways. Haliburton's kryptonite is stasis. His engine needs to stay in high gear and stalls out when he shifts into neutral. He thrives in the chaos. The looser the game gets, the calmer he plays.
That unique style works for a system that aims to bend defenses rather than breaking them down off the dribble. Carlisle knows the Pacers, even after last season's trade for former Raptors All-Star Pascal Siakam, don't have the scoring talent to barge through stationary defenders. The solution: Never slow down enough for that limitation to matter.
Most teams get down the floor in six or so seconds, then start their plays with 16 seconds left on the shot clock. But with Haliburton needing to play in constant motion, the Pacers usually hit the first screen with 20 on the shot clock, giving them the time they need to run through countless actions until an advantage eventually pops up. To the Pacers' opponents, it looks like chaos that induces panic. To Carlisle, Haliburton and the Pacers, it is their comfort zone.
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After spending so long building the Pacers' signature style, the last step for Haliburton was to identify times when it would hold up better without his hand on the wheel.
In last season's Eastern Conference finals, the Celtics deployed physical defenders who got into Haliburton's shirt and kept him from building momentum. Indiana got swept and actually played better once Haliburton went out injured.
Faced with a similar situation in Thursday's Game 1 against an even more physical Thunder defense, Haliburton sat back and watched Nembhard take over. Then, when the game reached its chaotic crescendo, Haliburton seized the moment.
It took two decades and several lives as a coach, but Carlisle and his point guard are finally simpatico. Just like his star guard does every night, Carlisle had to poke and prod until he found what worked.
Tyrese Haliburton is unique in every single way as a playmaker. Because of that, so are his Indiana Pacers.