Mystery, mixed signals

CHRISTINE TANNOUS/INDYSTAR - Indiana guard Tyrese Haliburton leaves the court after the Pacers’ Game 5 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on June 16 at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, a night when he went scoreless from the field.

Haliburton’s hurting, but no one seems to know how much

18 giu 2025 - The Indianapolis Star

Gregg Doyel Columnist Indianapolis Star USA TODAY NETWORT

Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton has a towel on his lap and a look on his face. Frustrated? Furious? Probably some of both. He’s just been removed from Game 5 of the NBA Finals after playing 34 minutes and making as many field goals as you did. In two minutes this will all be over, this 120-109 victory Monday night for the Thunder at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, but for Haliburton the frustration – the fury – is just getting started.

Because after this game there will be almost 72 hours before the 2025 NBA Finals return to Indianapolis for Game 6 on Thursday night, June 19, at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. That’s 72 hours of medical reports and quack rumors and frothy fulminations from the likes of ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins, who decided Haliburton was “scared” and then spent halftime joining forces with Stephen A. Smith to beg, no demand the Pacers wave the white flag on this game and shut down Haliburton for the second half.

We’ve seen weird games for the Pacers this postseason, and who’s to say which kind of weird is weirder than the next? But this was another of those things you just don’t see, as in ever: The best player on these 2025 Indiana Pacers, the best player in these 2025 NBA playoffs – that would be Tyrese Haliburton, who has hit three game-winning shots in the final seconds, and one that forced overtime in another victory – making almost zero impact. He had four points, seven rebounds, six assists and three turnovers. He took just six shots from the floor, and missed them all.

With about two minutes left the Pacers are trailing OKC 120-107, and while that would seem to be an insurmountable deficit, the Pacers have rallied from insurmountable deficits all postseason. They have been on a magical run in these playoffs, teamof-destiny stuff in comebacks against the Bucks, Cavaliers, Knicks and Thunder, but Rick Carlisle isn’t waiting around for the fairy tale in Game 5. He’s taking out Haliburton and a few others. He’s putting in Johnny Furphy and a few others. This game is over.

Now we go to the questions, starting with this one:

Is this series over?

Related: Is Tyrese Haliburton OK? How’s his leg? What just happened?

Is Tyrese Haliburton injured or what?

If Rick Carlisle was trying to make anyone feel better, he’s going to have to try harder. Because this is what he said about Haliburton after Game 5:

“He’s not 100% – it’s pretty clear,” Carlisle said. “But I don’t think he’s going to miss the next game.” Carlisle said a bit more.

“This is lifetime opportunity,” he said. “Not many guys are going to sit even if they’re a little banged up. Now if you’re injured, that’s a different story.”

So is Haliburton banged up, or injured? How big is the gap between the two? Big enough for ESPN to spend the next 72 hours driving an 18-wheeler through there, decimating reality and reducing the 2025 NBA Finals to a single stupid question:

Is Tyrese Haliburton a superstar?

Sorry. Wrong stupid question.

Is Tyrese Haliburton overrated?

Sorry! Wronger, stupider question.

Should Tyrese Haliburton have sat the second half of Game 5 to prepare for Game 6?

There. That’s the wrongest, stupidest question we’re going to hear until tipoff on June 19 – and this whole Haliburton injury thing is weird, isn’t it?

After Game 2 in Oklahoma City, Carlisle and Haliburton spoke with reporters in the postgame interview room. The Thunder had just beaten the Pacers 123-107. Haliburton had just scored 17 points and handed out six assists. Speaking with reporters for more than 10 combined minutes, neither Carlisle nor Haliburton said a word about Haliburton’s health. Nobody asked, either, because nothing had looked amiss during the game. But when Haliburton’s news conference was over, after he had managed to walk into the room without raising any eyebrows, he limped away from the podium.

Everyone saw it, because … of course they did.

Haliburton nearly had a triple-double in Game 3, by the way: 22 points, 11 assists, nine rebounds.

Let’s move to Game 5, to Monday night, to the first quarter – when Haliburton drove the lane and hit the deck as he lost the ball, grimacing as if something was hurting. He was spotted grabbing for his right calf, then went to the locker room.

The Pacers announced he had right lower leg tightness, but would return. Sure enough, Haliburton soon returned to the bench with an enormous wrap on his leg.

He took it off and went back into the game and played his normal minutes the rest of the way.

Haliburton wasn’t himself after he went out of the game, no, but let’s be clear: He wasn’t himself he went out, either. He took one shot in the first six minutes, and missed it. He grabbed zero rebounds. He had two assists and that turnover.

We have the Pacers saying he had tightness, but would return. We had Carlisle saying he’s not 100% – it’s pretty clear – but he expected Haliburton to play the next game. So he’s hurt, but not really. He’s not himself, but the Pacers’ franchise player, their $244 million investment, is OK enough to put on the court.

We even have Haliburton weighing in, saying whatever caused the limping after Game 2 might be related to the tightness after Game 5. But it might not.

“It’s the same area,” he said. “So I don’t know if they are related. But yeah, it’s the same area.”

What we have is a mystery, and a mess, and maybe I’m being too hard on ESPN and Perkins and Stephen A. Maybe the questions aren’t the problem here.

Maybe it’s the answers.

And where did T.J. McConnell go?

There’s another question people were asking after this game – you on social media, reporters after the game – and it comes down to the most unlikely sparkplug of these NBA Finals: Pacers guard T.J. McConnell. He’s the smallest, oldest player on the court, he plays below the rim, he shoots only 3-pointers because opposing teams dare him to try. And he’s unstoppable.

How is this possible? Great question, but not question. Here that comes:

Why didn’t McConnell play during the key stretch of the fourth quarter?

To reduce the answer to “Carlisle’s an idiot” is reductive, which means dumb, and also the question is just … well, it’s dumb. Carlisle will probably go into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame someday as a coach. He’s not an idiot. He had his reasons, namely: McConnell looked tired in the fourth quarter, and the starters made a push to get within 95-93 with 8:30 left when the wheels fell off. The Thunder unreeled an 18-4 run to push the lead to 113-97 with 5:05 left, and that was that.

Before all that, though: McConnell was terrifying. He scored 18 points in 22 minutes, including 13 in the final 6:40 of the third quarter. McConnell, who is 6-1 and 33 years old, scored repeatedly on Jalen Williams, who’s 6-6 and 24 and so good that he scored 40 points in Game 5. McConnell scored over 7-1 Chet Holmgren. And one time he scored on Williams, Holmgren, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Alex Caruso, dribbling around them like traffic cones before burying a 13-footer.

That came after the Thunder, like the Bucks and Cavs and Knicks before them, backed off McConnell and begged him to shoot from distance, and he did, and hit it and then barked to everybody and nobody:

“They have to guard me!” McConnell had a turnover early in the fourth quarter, came out with 10:50 left and the Pacers down 92-82, and didn’t come back into the game until the 3:23 mark. The deficit was 118-104, the game over. Here’s what Carlisle said about that:

“He was very tired – that’s why we got him out,” Carlisle said. “I think there was a play early in the fourth where it looked like fatigue had set in there. Then Ty was back in, and then that group went on a good run there.”

Carlisle then allowed, well, maybe he’d have another opinion after he watched the film.

“Yeah,” he said of possibly giving his best player in the third quarter more of a look in the fourth. “It’s always a consideration. But I haven’t gone through the entire game and completely analyzed the whole thing.”

There’s time for that. Oh brother is there time. Three days between Game 5 and Game 6, three days to wonder about Tyrese Haliburton. Did he disappear in Game 5 because that’s what he does, from time to time? Or did he disappear because he’s injured? And if he’s injured, why has he never appeared on the injury report during these NBA Finals, even after limping away from the podium following Game 2?

Is he OK? Is anyone OK, this late in the season? Maybe Carlisle gave the best answer possible, but you’ll have to read between the lines, because folks around these parts expect a lot of fawning. It’s not safe to come out and say much of anything, but here’s what Carlisle said of Haliburton.

“He’s not 100%,” Carlisle said. “There’s a lot of guys in the series that aren’t.”

Any more questions?