Knicks vs. Pacers: Tyrese Haliburton’s flawless Game 4 showed exactly how much he means to Indiana

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INDIANAPOLIS — Rick Carlisle walked into his press conference after Game 4 understanding that he was going to be asked about the masterpiece that his virtuoso point guard had just unleashed upon the Knicks: a 32-point, 12-rebound, 15-assist, zero-turnover triple-double to propel his Pacers to a 130-121 win, and to within one win of the franchise’s first NBA Finals appearance in 25 years.

But that didn’t mean Indiana’s head coach had to like it.

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“I know Ty did some historic stat stuff tonight, and that’s great,” Carlisle said after Game 4. “But it’s tough talking stats when it’s such a team thing right now.”

Heard, Coach. So, here are some stats you might like better:

• In the course of an 11-plus minute podium session with reporters — an interview that spanned nearly 2,000 words, the primary topic of which was playing the game of his life to get his team within one win of a chance to play for an NBA championship — Haliburton used the word “we” 28 times, the word “our” five times, the phrase “as a group” six times, and the phrase “play the right way” five times.

• He said “It’s about winning” twice, “I just want to impact winning” once, and “How can I impact winning?” once, bringing us to four discrete instances of emphasizing how much he wants to win.

• He gave a 52-second, 189-word answer in praise of Bennedict Mathurin, who bounced back from a rough start to the series by exploding for 20 points in 13 minutes off the bench, helping Indiana expand its lead with his physical drives to the basket and the free throws they generated.

• He almost said that it was more exciting to see Triple H in Gainbridge Fieldhouse than it was to see his dad back in the building — but he stopped short. Chalk up another possession successfully concluded without an unforced error.

“Look, Tyrese is a great player, and people realize that,” Carlisle said. “He happens to do some very impressive statistical things. But he’s well aware that all of this far transcends statistics.”

Haliburton left Game 3 with a bad taste in his mouth, frustrated by Indiana scoring just 42 points in the second half and leaving the door open for New York to pull off a daring comeback — unhappy with a finish where he felt the team he’s responsible for leading was on the back foot rather than pressing the action.

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“They’ve got some guys who just make some hellacious shots, you know, and [Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson] did that last game, and I felt like those were kind of like taking the air out of us,” Haliburton said. “We were kind of sighing after every one, walking the ball up. Today, we were just trying to keep focused on, ‘Who cares?’ You know, let’s get [the ball] in and let’s run, go right back at them. They’re gonna make shots. Let’s just keep going.”

Haliburton hit the gas off the jump, repeatedly attacking Towns and Brunson in the pick-and-roll and generating great looks. He rebounded misses and mashed the pedal to the floor, creating three open 3-point attempts in the first three minutes of the game before stepping into his first — an almost unfathomably open stepback after the Knicks miscommunicated assignments on a switch in transition — and drilling it to put Indiana up 16-9, a sterling start that put Game 3’s ugly finish behind them.

The Pacers scored 42 points in the second half on Sunday; they scored 43 points in the first quarter on Tuesday. They were off to the races, with Haliburton, as always, setting the pace.

“I felt like I’d let the team down in Game 3 — felt like I could have been so much better,” he said. “So I felt like I responded the right way today.”

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Yeah, you could say that.

“I just thought he was free out there,” said Pacers forward Pascal Siakam, who scored 30 points on 11-for-21 shooting with five rebounds. “Just playing with pace, just not slowing down whatsoever, just being in attack mode the whole game. And for him, what makes him special is attack mode is not just scoring — it’s getting us in position, bringing the pace, playing the way that we want to play, and then also him just being in control of the game.”

“He was the leader tonight,” Carlisle said.

It’s a role that Haliburton has steadily grown into since landing in Indianapolis back in February of 2022 in a blockbuster trade that — with all due respect to Domantas Sabonis, an excellent player — looked like a steal at the time and now feels like outright larceny. Step by step, brick by brick, Haliburton has been the foreman overseeing the construction project in Indiana: an overhaul in overarching approach, a revolution in RPMs.

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“Unbelievable,” said Pacers forward Aaron Nesmith, who gutted through a sprained right ankle to play 33 minutes of physical defense on Brunson while also chipping in 16 points on 5-for-9 shooting. “He’s a special player. He does what we ask of him, what we need him to do every night, and I think he almost had a triple-double at halftime. This guy is unbelievable.”

The most unbelievable part, really, is the turnovers — or, rather, their absence. Haliburton now has a 44-to-6 assist-to-turnover ratio in 153 minutes in these Eastern Conference finals — almost all of which has been spent with him fending off physical defenders in his face, playing as fast as he possibly can, and slinging the ball all the hell over the court.

“He was really throwing the ball ahead tonight, too, which was really important for us,” Carlisle said. “And to not have any turnovers in any of those situations, too, is pretty remarkable. But this is — this has become his thing. And you know, there will be a new statistical category, perhaps named after him, somewhere down the line.

“You know, him and Chris Paul, these guys … there aren’t a lot of guys. I know [John] Stockton didn’t turn it over much, back when he played. There are others. LeBron James doesn’t turn it over very much. And you can go right down the line. Some of the all-time greats. I know he takes great pride in it, and that’s a motivating factor.”

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(Haliburton confirmed that: “I’d rather do really anything else on the basketball court than turn the ball over.”)

Go back a second, though, and look at those names: Paul, Stockton, James. These are some of the absolute greatest playmakers in the history of the sport. Maybe it feels a little early for all that. With one more win and a Finals berth, though — and, let’s face it, likely an Eastern Conference final MVP trophy — Haliburton would take a big step toward earning a spot in such august company … even if the way he gets there looks a little bit different from those all-time table-setters.

“I think my game is a little unorthodox,” Haliburton said. “I jump to pass probably more than anybody in the NBA. But I work on that stuff. That’s how I’ve worked my whole life to play the game. So I take pride in taking care of the ball. I feel like the more we take care of the ball as a team, the more opportunities we get to shoot the ball. The more shots we get in the game, the better opportunity we have to win.”

Just so long as he doesn’t forget to look for his own shot sometimes, too.

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“He’s amazing — like, when he’s playing that way, and just the pace and getting us in position, and then also being aggressive, just finding that balance of doing both, like … yeah, we know he’s a pass-first kind of guy, but he also was able to give us big buckets when we really needed them,” Siakam said. “I just loved the way he played tonight, his energy on both ends of the floor. And also you don’t turn the ball over? That’s amazing.”

Combine that with stepped-up effort on the defensive end — 12 defensive boards, four steals — and you’ve got a performance for the ages.

After one of those steals, when he pounced on Brunson to force a turnover in the third quarter, Haliburton popped up and high-fived Pacer alum and former teammate George Hill, who was seated in the front row:

That moment meant a lot to Haliburton.

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“I see G-Hill as kind of like one of my vets,” Haliburton said after the game. “He was here with me for a little bit, and we do have constant conversation to this day. But you see Lance [Stephenson] in the building, you know, Stephen Jackson was here the other day, Al Harrington, Roy Hibbert, [Danny Granger], Reggie [Miller] — I mean, all these guys are guys I’ve grown up watching.”

“Yeah, and he’s doing this within the system — you know, there isn’t a lot of freelance stuff, where they’re just outside-the-box gambles,” Carlisle said. “He’s doing it within the system, and that’s real growth.”

Everywhere you look in Indiana, there’s growth: Nesmith’s evolution as a shooter, Mathurin’s bounce-back maturity, Andrew Nembhard’s developing two-way work, and on, and on. These Pacers are smack in the middle of the pack in terms of average roster age among NBA teams; there’s plenty of young guys still with a ton of runway to get better, Haliburton included. The deeper the play, the bigger the games get, and the more they learn.

One thing they’re learning: When you get an opportunity as good as the one that’s in front of them right now, you have to seize it with both hands. And when you do, it’s awful nice to have a point guard who’d rather do anything than cough it up.

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“He runs our team,” Siakam said. “When he brings the ball up, the pace he brings it with, just the way he plays … yeah, it makes our team go. For me, I just enjoy being a part of it — playing with him, just knowing that he cares about putting us all into the position to be successful. That’s what makes him special.”

“Look, he’s had a lot of things happen this year,” Carlisle said. “You know, the year’s been filled with ups and downs. He’s remained remarkably resilient and steadfast in his belief in what we’re doing and who he is. We just need him to continue to lead us.”

That mantle of leadership, passed down from those Pacer greats in the building for Game 4, rests with Haliburton. He knows the franchise will go as far as he can take it; he also understands, like all the great point guards do, that you can go a hell of a lot farther together than you can alone.

“When I got traded to the Pacers, or just being a basketball fan, you think of all the guys that come before you,” Haliburton said. “And they’ve tried to help put this organization in a better place than they found it. And that’s what I’m trying to do, as well.”

This news was originally published on this post .

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