The Indiana Pacers are down 0-2 in their series against the Boston Celtics and Tyrese Haliburton was held out of the game for most of the second half with left hamstring soreness.
Yes, that’s the same hamstring that kept him out of 10 games and hindered him for many more as he pushed to make it over the 65 games required to be eligible for All-NBA (he was voted All-NBA 3rd Team). Update as of 5 p.m. Friday, Haliburton is listed as questionable with the injury for Game 3.
The soreness in the hamstring started at some point in the first half according to Rick Carlisle and he received treatment during halftime and was able to return to the game but he left with 3:44 left in the third quarter for good with 10 points and 8 assists.
“It’s sore,” Carlisle said of Haliburton’s left hamstring. “We’ll know more tomorrow and then probably even more Saturday.”
While it’s encouraging that he could initially try and play through the soreness rather than it being something more similar to the OG Anunoby injury in Game 2 of the previous series, any hopes the Pacers have lie in their star guard’s status for Game 3 and beyond. Carlisle was adamant that they didn’t just hold him out of the game to better his chances of playing in future games because they were down double digits.
“He was unable to return,” said Carlisle. “It wasn’t like it was a coaching decision not to play him. We hope it’s a short-term reaggravation. We’ll know more tomorrow.”
Haliburton was seen limping to the team bus after the game and will have testing today as they prepare for pivotal Game 3. With it being the same hamstring that was injured for much of the season, it’s understandable for Pacers fans to be less than optimistic. Haliburton also had to get chest x-rays at halftime after Jaylen Brown stole a rebound from the point guard while elbowing him in the face and colliding into it without a foul call.
The Celtics were relentless at hunting Haliburton and the Pacers miscommunicated on countless plays with whether or not they were switching or players would get hung up on screens for too long and instead of conceding the switch, they would leave the screener whether Jrue Holiday or Derrick White wide open at the top of the key to get back to Tatum far too late for Haliburton to have any chance getting back to contest.
“I mean when your franchise guy goes down, it’s tough,” TJ McConnell said. “But that’s a time for this group who has done it this year for everyone to step up and take a bigger role. We’ve done a good job of that when he’s been out … but it’s next man up mentality and guys just have to be ready.”
The Pacers lost the first game in the Bucks series and went on the win the series. They lost the first two games in the Knicks series and went on to win the series. Now they’ve lost the first two against the 1-seed Boston Celtics. They obviously don’t want to try and continue that pattern by losing the first three games of this series. While it’s not impossible to come back down from 0-2 in this series, it’s a monumental task even if Haliburton is able to go. The Pacers will have to hope their home court advantage provides a major boost as they head back to fieldhouse.
The Pacers defensive issues have been brutal against the only offense in the league more efficient than their own. Their full-court pressure served them well against the Bucks and the Knicks but the Celtics have too many capable ball-handlers that have relentlessly attacked the pressure quickly and scored with ease with multiple defenders still hanging around their own men in the backcourt giving Boston an easy way to create transition opportunities with a wide open floor. Celtics are often scoring within the first few seconds of the shot clock after Pacers made baskets in ways that the Pacers themselves are used to punishing teams. The full-court pressure may be untenable in this series.
Offensive rebounds were a problem … again. At one point, the Celtics had more offensive rebounds than the Pacers had total in the first half. While they battled on the glass in the second half and ended up with 12 offensive rebounds of their own compared to 13 for Boston, they just didn’t make the Celtics defense pay the way the Celtics always seemed to get a backbreaking 3 or a layup when they crashed the glass for multiple second chances.
After a solid first quarter that saw the Pacers ahead by two points, the Pacers offense vanished for five minutes to start the second quarter as the Celtics went on a 20-0 run from end of first to halfway through the second. Myles Turner struggled with foul trouble and tried to take advantage of smaller wings being on him by posting up inside by on three possessions in the stretch he missed a short turnaround jumper, Nembhard threw the pass too far over the fronting defender for a turnover, and Turner lost the ball out of bounds after it was swiped away. It was an incredibly rough showing for Myles who has been fantastic throughout the playoff run but hasn’t been able to solve the Celtics coverage once they quit guarding him with Al Horford. Turner did bounce back in the third quarter with 8 points including a pair of 3-pointers and a Dirk one-legged fadeaway.
With the Pacers eager to correct their unforced errors from Game 1, they still struggled to take care of the ball against the Celtics defense. It doesn’t help that Brown, who scored 40 points, is able to run through TJ McConnell to get a loose ball like a running back through a defender without a call while being unable to play with any physicality on defense just like he was able to grab players jersey’s with impunity late in Game 1. But they made plenty of terrible decisions that resulted in handing the ball over on their own once again, following their 22 turnovers with another 16. Both well above their postseason averages. They did give up 20 less points on their turnovers in this game as more of them were dead-ball plays rather than live ones leading to transition opportunities.
Pascal Siakam was the only bright spot of this game and I hope to have more written content available on him shortly. He was dominant and the Celtics had zero answers for him as he scored 28 points on 13 of 17 shooting while only playing two minutes in the fourth quarter.
About those two minutes, Carlisle seemed to wave the white flag quite soon in this game as he put Doug McDermott into the game to start the fourth quarter and never played multiple starters in the final frame. More on a disappointing first two games from Carlisle and choosing McDermott over Walker here.
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