Tyrese Haliburton learning to be more aggressive for Indiana Pacers: 'He's an All-Star caliber player'

Haliburton is transforming his mindset to become a better scorer.

Oct 19, 2022; Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton (0) shoots the ball over Washington Wizards guard Delon Wright (55) in the second half at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports

Tyrese Haliburton is one of the faces of the Indiana Pacers rebuild. He's an offensive force already at just age 22, and his passing ability ranks near the top of the league — he finished fourth in the entire NBA in assists last season.

While Haliburton's ability to read the game is already advanced for his age, in the past he has been billed as a past-first point guard. The third-year pro is a perfectionist, though, and he would often be critical of his passiveness after games in prior seasons. He wanted to be able to hunt his shot more while still being a skilled setup man for his teammates.

That balance can be tricky to find, but in Indiana's first game of the 2022-23 season, Haliburton showed what it looks like. He finished with 26 points and seven assists against the Washington Wizards, and he led the Pacers in shot attempts and dimes. He guided the Pacers offense to a 109 offensive rating when he was on the floor and controlled the game with his balance of passing and scoring.

It was just one game. But finding that equilibrium was key for Haliburton and his development. Seeing it on opening night was encouraging for both Haliburton and the Pacers franchise.

"It's an emphasis of mine all summer. Just been staying aggressive," Haliburton said. "I spent the whole summer kind of working on my mindset, my approach to the game of basketball. So it's not a work in progress anymore, it's becoming who I am. It's shifted as the summers went on, and here we are."

Haliburton, by nature, always wants to correct his mistakes. He wants to be the  best version of the player that he is.

But it's important for a player's development that any skills they add don't take away from the abilities that make the player gifted. In Haliburton's case, that is why a mindset shift was needed. For him to be the best possible version of himself, he needed to remain a brilliant passer while still hunting for his own shot more often. It's a tricky symmetry to find, but the 2021 All-NBA All-Rookie First Team member is searching for it.

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"He's going to do what's needed on a night-to-night basis. He's a pure pass-first point guard all the way," Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said. Carlisle is confident Haliburton's approach can be malleable based on what Indiana needs on a given night.

In their opener, the Pacers needed scoring. Haliburton dropped in 26 points, a number he had only reached four times in the first 135 games of his career. In that quartet of games, the Iowa State product only dished out seven assists twice. His offensive performance on Wednesday was impressive, and it is reflective of the mindset shift that Haliburton has been working on during the offseason.

It took a lot for the point guard to make that change. "A lot of different things [went into it]. Mentally, getting over having to have self-talk, talking with people that I love and hearing their opinions," Haliburton said of his mindset transformation. "Truthfully, I don't get many compliments these days, whether that's from my trainer or people around me that really love me. It's not a negative thing, they just understand the task at hand — the ultimate goal of my career and where I can go. I'm sure I'll hear about not being as aggressive as they wanted me to [be] after this."

Being more aggressive, and having a new mindset, doesn't just mean taking more shots. It means attacking the rim more, which Haliburton did 14 times against the Wizards. It means being nosier on defense, and his primary matchup (Monte Morris) shot 2/6 on Wednesday. And it means hunting his shots at the right time.

Haliburton wasn't reliant on his teammates to score, either. He made ten shots on his way to 26 points, and only one of them was assisted by another Pacer. He was a self starter who often made the right decisions with the ball, and that is the next needed step in his growth.

"Tyrese is a hell of a player and he showed that tonight," big man Isaiah Jackson said. "Getting to his spots, feeding the ball, taking great shots... I've seen all the work he's put in this summer."

It's unreasonable to expect Haliburton to put up similar numbers all year. Only 16 players in NBA history have averaged 26 points and seven assists per game over the course of a full season. It's rare, especially at a young age, to see those numbers.

But Tyrese Haliburton at least showed he's capable of putting up huge numbers on any given night, and he tore apart the Wizards defense. If he continues to approach that production all season, he could be in the hunt for some league awards at the end of the year, and the Pacers may be better than many predicted.

"We're going to need him to score and be aggressive because teams are going to pay a lot of attention to him and that's going to open up the whole game. We know he can pass the ball and he can score as well, he showed [that] today," center Goga Bitadze said on Wednesday.

"He's an All-Star caliber player. We knew this and we've been saying this, but he's going to show that he's that good," Bitadze added. It's only been one game of the new season, but Tyrese Haliburton's mindset shift was noticeable. If he can continue to play like that as the season progresses, he could be in the All-Star hunt, as Bitadze suggested.

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