“I want to be playing on the biggest stage, and that’s the playoffs.”
It’s crazy to think that just two years ago, all Tyrese Haliburton wanted to do was get to this moment he is in right now. Not only are the Indiana Pacers competing right now, but since he said those very words, they’ve have had their best playoff runs since the 2019-20 season.
Last year, they made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals and now, with the game on the line, it was Haliburton that delivered a game-winning layup to defeat the Bucks and clinch the series.
Winning has always been the goal, but with this win in particular, Haliburton sent a message.
“I just love proving people wrong. I don’t know, I love negativity,” he said in the SLAM cover story. “I love seeing negativity on Twitter. I love hearing people say negative comments about my game. It always interests me. It could be somebody with, like, no followers, I just want to prove them wrong.”
In the postgame press conference, Haliburton, who was critical of himself for missing shots and key possessions earlier in the game, said that it was his teammates encouraged him to just keep playing. Ultimately, the Pacers “made plays when we needed to,” especially when they went on an 8-0 run the last 40 seconds.
“Resilience” is the word Haliburton then used to describe this Pacers squad: Haliburton had 26-point performance and Myles Turner tallied 21-points and nine boards in the 119-118 dub.
As they get ready to play No. 1 Cleveland, that’s exactly what they’ll need going into the second round.
