Talk about rising to the moment.
Tyrese Haliburton immediately made it clear that this was not going to be a repeat of his terrible Game 5 as he and the rest of the Indiana Pacers lit Madison Square Garden on fire from the tip by setting a playoff record by making 67% of their shots.
Haliburton led the way with 14 points in a 3-minute stretch that broke the game wide open while making four 3-pointers and a mid-range jumper over a six possession stretch that increased the Pacers lead from 23-20 to to 39-24. TJ McConnell was the only Pacers player to also score in the 16-4 run.
“We have a historic offense obviously, but this guy got things rolling and everybody just kind of followed suit,” Myles Turner on Haliburton. “To do that on the road here in the Garden obviously is phenomenal, but I think this is what we’ve been doing all season long. We were able to show it on the biggest stage.”
One shot saw Haliburton pursue the ball from the opposite end of the floor and putting up a rainbow 3-pointer after receiving the pass from McConnell, he hit step-backs, he hit pull-ups in transition, he jumped over smaller defenders. He took over in the biggest game of his career.
After every shot, Haliburton looked to the same person sitting courtside wearing a flannel shirt and a baseball cap, pointing to him, telling him to “talk that shit.” Reggie Miller would be proud. Haliburton took a page out of the Pacer legend’s book on how to break the hearts of Knicks fans and wrote his very own chapter at the Garden. It wasn’t the first time this season Haliburton found motivation from a fan.
You would think any Knicks fan in the world would have taken the lesson of Spike Lee to heart and not have any desire to motivate a Pacers star guard but this Knicks fan apparently likes to live dangerously.
“He was talking before the game,” Haliburton told reporters after the game while wearing a Miller choke sign hoodie. “It seemed like whoever was sitting in that seat had something to say to me all series. I knew I was going to have to pick somebody to get me going today and it just happened to be him … but I think that’s the game within the game. That’s the fun that is this environment.”
We appreciate you here in Indiana, you foolish fan.
Stephen A. Smith, annoying homer that he was on television all series, gave his props to Haliburton and killed the idiotic frontrunner narrative that Bobby Portis started in round one, confirming that Haliburton was being heckled before the game and was talking shit back to them before the game.
With Haliburton saying he was actively looking for that motivation, it’s fair to wonder if he had any conservations with the Pacers best player of all time in Miller, who beat the Knicks at Madison Square Garden in New York’s last Game 7 in the playoffs 29 years ago in 1995 and still haunts Knicks fans enough for them to chant “Fuck You, Reggie” during the second game of the series.
“We text every day,” Haliburton said when asked about whether he had spoken with Miller during the series and about his hoodie he wore for the presser. “He’s been a good mentor for me. And I mean I’m just wearing a hoodie. I like to be comfy on the plane.”
The Pacers young padawan is learning well from Pace Windu. You couldn’t have written a better script for Indiana fans who had to be pinching themselves as Haliburton made 3 after 3 while pointing courtside.
This mentorship started at some point in the previous season after the Pacers asked him to call Miller on the phone. Haliburton was hesistant to do so just because he didn’t want to bother him but that relationship has continued to grow since then. Here’s Tyrese talking about it on Podcast P with Paul George from before the season.
George lamented the fact that he never got the mentor relationship he hoped for with Reggie while he was in Indiana, especially with their similar backgrounds. Maybe all it would have took was George initiating it with a phone call but it’s good to see Miller taking a Pacers star under his wings this time around.
A reporter asked Haliburton if he also picked some Knicks to motivate him as he had words often with Donte DiVincenzo throughout the game.
“They picked him, shit,” Myles Turner said in response as both he and Pascal Siakam said they were talking crazy all series to the Pacers star guard.
Haliburton answered the call in every way in his first career Game 7. 26 points (10 of 17), 6 assists, 4 rebounds, a steal, and a block. After he disappeared in Game 5, he bounced back with major aggression and will in the final two games of the series and like Reggie before him, he beat the Knicks to advance in the playoffs and inspired a new generation of New York fans to hate a Pacers guard with a passion. You love to see it.
Nobody picked the Pacers to win this series and now they are headed to the conference finals to face perhaps the best team in the NBA in the Boston Celtics. Who knows what happens next but this has been a hell of a run so far.
—-PACERS GAME THREE TICKET GIVEAWAY— Autograph is going to be giving away tickets to Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. More info to come but it will be hosted on an app that you can download with this link on a mobile device: https://link.ag.fan/ipacers or by using the promo code IPACERS. Downloading the app supports the site and will give you a chance to win Game 3 tickets.
iPacers 
[…] Tyrese Haliburton broke this game open in the first half while being motivated by a Knicks fan sitting courtside. While Spike Lee isn’t dumb enough to motivate an opposing player anymore, Haliburton was still able to find someone before the game to inspire a blistering 14 points in 3 minutes that extended the Pacers lead to 16. More on that here. […]
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