Pacers' Tyrese Haliburton owns Game 5 clunker in New York: ‘I'll be better in Game 6'

New York Times

a day ago

NEW YORK — Tyrese Haliburton and Andrew Nembhard share a former coach who was concerned about Game 5 for the Indiana Pacers.
Haliburton played the last two summers for USA Basketball, which had the all-star coaching staff of Steve Kerr, Erik Spoelstra, Tyronn Lue and Mark Few — who was Nembhard's coach in college at Gonzaga.
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Few is from a small town on the western coast of Oregon, population today of about 5,000, and he is both famous and kidded by his players for the colloquial language he uses to make a point. So Thursday, ahead of Indiana's potential closeout game in the Eastern Conference finals at Madison Square Garden, Few texted Haliburton and Nembhard to say: 'Don't tiptoe into a bar fight.'
Which, as it turns out, is basically what the Pacers ended up doing in a 111-94 loss to the New York Knicks in Game 5.
'It was a rough showing for us tonight,' Haliburton acknowledged.
Look, losses after playoff games are too often explained by clichés that have to do with: A. Boxing; B. Getting punched in the face, chest or stomach (which can happen in MMA, taekwondo or outside of Jimmy's Corner Bar on Sixth and 46th); C. Being less aggressive than the team that won (not as sexy, but 'aggressive' is as time-worn as all the punching metaphors in the NBA playoffs).
The Knicks didn't hit anyone Thursday night, but they played desperate. They noticeably turned up the pressure defensively, they jumped passing lanes, they refused to be denied on drives to the hoop. They had to be that way, one more false step by the New Yorkers, and their playoffs are over.
That's what Few knew was coming for his two former players, both from the Knicks' side and also from a raucous, borderline frothy MSG crowd that was, by the end of things, chanting 'Knicks in seven, Knicks in seven.'
The, ahem, sober, clinical diagnosis of what happened in Game 5 is that the Pacers, generally, didn't play well (which will be dissected elsewhere at The Athletic), and specifically Haliburton turned in a stinker — which happens from time to time with him.
In 32 minutes of game action on Thursday, Haliburton scored eight points on seven shots. If you just know him generally as a pretty good player, maybe as an All-Star, perhaps as a third-team All-NBA selection, you might raise an eyebrow over a player of his caliber producing so little with a trip to the NBA Finals on the line.
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If you have been following the conference finals, and you know all about Haliburton's heroics in Game 1, with the 31 points, the score-tying shot at the buzzer and the Reggie Miller flex, as well as the historic, never-been-equaled, 32-point, 12-rebound, 15-assist, zero-turnover performance he dropped in Game 4, then maybe Game 5 is a real head-scratcher, to the point where you might ask, why the tiptoeing, bruh?
'A rough day for me,' Haliburton said. 'I got to be better, set the tone, get downhill. I feel like I can do a great job of that, but I'll watch the film. There's some different things they did defensively. But for the most part, I think their base stuff was the same. They picked up the pressure a little bit more, tried to apply more as the game went on. But yeah, I gotta be better, and I'll be better in Game 6.'
I covered the Pacers' series against the Cleveland Cavaliers, and I recall him making huge plays in the first two games to win both of them and then score 4 points in a 22-point loss in Game 3 of that series. What I was less aware of, because I only saw the Pacers from time to time during the regular season, is these occasional disappearances happen.
For instance, in Game 2 of the entire season, all the way back in October, Haliburton went scoreless against the Knicks. In 26 minutes. He was held under 10 points 11 times this season (by lofty comparison, LeBron James hasn't scored fewer than 10 points in a regular-season game since Jan. 5, 2007), and shut out twice. Haliburton now has two clunkers to his name in these playoffs.
The reason to go to such great lengths pointing this out is, if the Pacers win Game 6, he would almost certainly be the series MVP because he had been so consistent and so clutch in the closing moments of the close games.
'As a team, we have to be aggressive and have a level of balance,' Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. 'I mean, I'll look at it. There's more things I'm gonna have to do to help him. I'll take responsibility for that, and we'll see what we can improve.'
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The Knicks borrowed a page from the Pacers by pressuring the ball earlier in the Pacers' possessions, preventing Haliburton from throwing skip passes and otherwise slowing him down from getting Indiana into its offense. That is the precise formula the Pacers had used defensively to eradicate the Milwaukee Bucks and Cavs and push the Knicks to the brink of elimination.
Haliburton said 'when you get here at this point, there's no such thing as surprises,' which, if we are to take him at his word, means the Pacers knew the Knicks were going to crank up the pressure and simply failed to handle it.
The Pacers remain on the brink of their first NBA Finals since 2000, and the first ever for many of their players — including Haliburton. They haven't lost two straight since March. Haliburton said as much; he knows he needs to, and vowed to be, better in Game 6.
If you're stepping into a swimming pool full of sharks (why would you do that, ever?) or perhaps walking into a rough-and-tumble bar in Hell's Kitchen, with every patron over 6-1 and 220 pounds (again, why, but I digress), perhaps you would tread lightly. It seemed to be the case for Haliburton and the Pacers, despite Few's warning to the contrary.
But downtown Indianapolis has good bars, too. And the Pacers will have the benefit of standing behind the saloon doors, with empty bottles and sawed-off stools in hand, waiting for the visitors to approach.
'We felt like our preparation was right, as a group I felt like we approached the day the right way, but I feel like I could have been a lot better,' Haliburton said. 'You know, put it on me, and I'll be better in Game 6.'
(Top photo of Tyrese Haliburton and Jalen Brunson: Al Bello / Getty Images)