Tyrese Haliburton was emotional.
Understandably so. He played his first real game of basketball in more than a year. A step toward erasing the photo of him on the floor in Game 7 as the defining moment of his career.
Aside from him being winded at times, Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers looked like the player and team that broke so many opponents’ spirits two years ago, albeit with some obvious changes at center and on the wings. Pascal Siakam drove much of that by scoring 12 of his 30 points in the final quarter.
After a lost season, the Pacers showed us that they can still drop the hammer and pull out a win. One can question whether they should be in that situation against the New Orleans Pelicans, but Indiana was without a few key players.
Haliburton’s return proves he is the key to everything the Pacers do. He dropped 23 points and 12 assists while opening up the floor for everyone else. There was the finesse on passes that pushed the tempo, something dearly lacking a season ago. There was more aggression in shooting that Indiana needed both as the ball-handler and as a star creating his own shot. The fun-and-gun offense and relentless defense fell back into place.
Ivica Zubac integrated himself on both ends of the floor to somehow quietly post a double-double of 16 points and 14 rebounds. Even when he wasn’t posting counting stats, his presence changed how the Pelicans stretched out their defense.
Obi Toppin showed he can still randomly give you 22 points on a given night with his 7-of-12 shooting from the floor and 4-of-9 from deep. Andrew Nembhard dropped 18 points and 9 assists. Siakam match hell is so back.
Some things didn’t change, and some issues returned too. Pacers still struggled to rebound overall despite Zubac’s performance, and Siakam still inexplicably can’t hit free throws. We’ll blame the bench issues on missing T.J. McConnell and Aaron Nesmith for now.
But Haliburton is back, and so are the Pacers.
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