The Indiana Pacers look the a part of an NBA title staff, and it’s not simply their celebrity main the way in which.
The Indiana Pacers have a commanding 3-1 lead within the Japanese Convention Finals over the New York Knicks. They’ve loved heroics from Aaron Nesmith, Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam, and Bennedict Mathurin all through the sequence, and look poised to make their first Finals look since 2000.
Haliburton authored among the best video games in NBA historical past in Recreation 4, scoring 32 factors to go along with 15 assists, 12 rebounds, 4 steals, and no turnovers.
He joined one different participant in NBA historical past to report a 30-point triple-double with no turnovers.
Solely two gamers have recorded a 30-point triple-double within the playoffs with no turnovers: Tyrese Haliburton in 2025 and Baron Davis in 2002.
Whereas each are All-Stars, neither is an all-time nice like Magic Johnson, LeBron James, Nikola Jokic, and even James Harden and Russell Westbrook.
Haliburton, regardless of being named probably the most overrated participant within the league by his friends, is well among the best flooring generals within the NBA. He isn’t a high-volume scorer in comparison with some contemporaries, however he takes care of the ball like nobody else.
This season, he led the NBA with 5.5 assists for each turnover, and loved a 12-game stretch in February and March the place he posted 21.1 factors, 12.6 assists, 2.4 steals, and only one.1 turnovers per recreation.
Together with his league-leading assist-to-turnover ratio, Haliburton turned the primary participant since Chris Paul in 2015 to be in each the highest three in assists per recreation and assist-to-turnover ratio.
Haliburton, together with his playoff masterclasses and clutch baskets, has ascended into the very best tier of NBA gamers and is a bona fide celebrity.
Whereas Stephen A. Smith has regularly made it clear that he doesn’t assume Haliburton is a celebrity, one in every of his ESPN colleagues thinks anybody who’s hesitant to present him the label merely doesn’t know basketball.
“Should you’re not waking up at the moment, Wednesday, Might twenty eighth, saying that Tyrese Haliburton is a celebrity, don’t speak to me about basketball at the moment,” proclaimed Jay Williams. “He affected and accounted for over 80 of the staff’s 130 factors between factors and assists over 80 factors of the staff’s 130. That may be a celebrity that we noticed on the grand stage.”
Invoice Simmons admitted on his podcast that recency bias affected his determination, however he ranked Haliburton because the ninth-best participant within the league proper now, and in the event that they make the Finals will transfer him up a spot over Donovan Mitchell.
The Pacers have had their fair proportion of elite role-player play within the postseason. In opposition to the Knicks alone, Nesmith shot eight-of-nine from deep in Recreation 1, TJ McConnell twice scored double-digits off the bench, and Siakam has twice supplied 30 or extra factors.
Since buying and selling for Siakam final season, the Pacers have made two straight Convention Finals for the primary time since Paul George was on the town.
On any given night time, Siakam may be the primary, second, or third-best participant on the Pacers, however he merely performs successful basketball for Indiana and is one of the best second possibility in the complete league.
“He actually has simply flown below the radar,” mentioned Chandler Parsons of Siakam. “If Tyrese Haliburton is probably the most overrated participant, which is ridiculous, this dude’s probably the most underrated participant…He doesn’t take dangerous photographs. He simply goes about his enterprise.”
Since successful a hoop with the Toronto Raptors as a role-player behind Kawhi Leonard, Siakam has blossomed right into a star however doesn’t command the eye a star does, very equally to how Tim Duncan operated each on and off the court docket. That’s not the one method he’s been in comparison with the five-time champion, as he scores with an analogous ease.
“The talent stage, just like the backboard shot, the glass, we hadn’t used the glass since Tim Duncan,” supplied Lou Williams, who performed towards each. “Pascal Siakam, that’s what he does.”
As Indiana marches via the East and is only one recreation away from making the Finals, their well-rounded roster is just rivaled by the favourite to win the West, the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder. Maybe groups will take a web page from their ebook as they construct their rosters shifting ahead.
