Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton won't be stopped by more defensive attention

Haliburton bounced back from his worst career game on Monday

Indiana Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle has coached some incredibly smart basketball players through the years — Jason Kidd and Luka Doncic, to name a few. He's seen some of the brightest minds in the game up close.

Not long ago, Carlisle praised his current point guard, Tyrese Haliburton, by lauding his basketball intelligence. "He's a very special player," Carlisle said of Haliburton during the Pacers recent road trip. "In the basketball genius category."

Haliburton has a special ability to read the game and make adjustments. He can sense when and where his teammates need the ball to get them going. His gut knows exactly when it's time for him to be aggressive. And he understands how to counter what opposing teams are doing to slow him, and the Pacers, down.

That's why Indiana's offense is 5.34 points per 100 possessions better with Haliburton on the court than on the bench, and why he tops the league in assists while averaging nearly 20 points per game. He's evolved into one of the best offensive players in the league.

"A savant-like grasp of the game," Carlisle said of Haliburton and former Pacer Domantas Sabonis. "He's an amazing young player, getting better all the time," he added of Haliburton.

That praise is what made Monday night's game between the Pacers and Miami Heat so surprising. Indiana lost 87-82, by far their lowest scoring outing of the season. The normally-excellent Haliburton finished with one point, which came on a free throw awarded from a technical foul. It was the second-lowest scoring game of his career.

His 0/9 shooting night was the worst accuracy of his career. He's made zero shots in a game twice before, but he took five or fewer shots on both occasions. The Heat held Haliburton to six assists, too, tied for his third fewest in a game this season.

It was Haliburton's least effective performance as a Pacer, and maybe of his time as a pro. "This is probably the worst game I've seen Tyrese play my whole career," Pacers guard Buddy Hield said after the game, noting that he offered his teammate a pick-me-up after the game.

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In that game, Haliburton received a ton of defensive attention. Miami would often send two players to guard him when he dribbled around a screen. They stayed glued to him off the ball, and they would send four or five players back for defense after missed shots to prevent Haliburton from shining in transition. They had a blueprint to slow him — and in turn, the Pacers — down.

"Just a bad game for me. Shots weren't falling. Kudos to them, they did a good job defensively, they were locked in," Haliburton said after the game. He thought Miami's scheme was excellent and that he needed to be more aggressive.

"It was a little bit of a shell shock for us because it was the first time he's been taken out of it like that," Pacers center Myles Turner said the next day. Guard Andrew Nembhard added that the the team needed to find ways to make it so he wasn't fighting defensive pressure as often.

As basketball geniuses do, though, Haliburton figured it out and didn't get too low. He spent the next few days reflecting and felt like he let his team down. He wasn't going to have consecutive poor games.

Against the 2022 NBA Champion Golden State Warriors two nights later, Haliburton was excellent. He was more aggressive, as he said he needed to be, finishing with 29 points. He took 17 shots, the fourth-most he has taken in a game this season, and he paired that with seven free throw attempts, his third-best mark of the season. He attacked when he was supposed to, controlled the game, and buried important shots.

He added four rebounds, six assists, one steal, and two blocks in a 125-119 victory. Haliburton knew exactly what the Pacers needed to win, as he has often this season, and he provided it.

"The past two days have sucked, just from a personal standpoint," he said after the game. He hated the feeling he had after the Heat shut him down.

When Indiana needs Haliburton to be aggressive like that, he has been. When he needs to distribute, like he did against the Lakers defensive pressure and Toronto's defensive scheme, he finds his open teammates. When he needs to differ, like in Brooklyn when Chris Duarte had 30 points and needed the ball more, he finds ways to be effective off ball.

That's what makes Haliburton a basketball genius. Whatever the Indiana Pacers need, he provides, and no one game plan or strategy can consistently slow him down. His bounceback performance against Golden State was more evidence of that.

"Tyrese just has a great feel for what the team needs," Carlisle said last week after his team took down the Washington Wizards. "I think he realizes that he can score when he needs to score, but that we need to have a lot of guys involved."

That's how Haliburton has been all year. He figures out what his team needs and he makes it happen. That's why he was so easily able to flush his career-worst night and recover with a stunning performance to help the Pacers take down the NBA Champions.

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