By Frank Pingue
(Reuters) -The Indiana Pacers not only came up short in the decisive seventh game of the NBA Finals but also lost star player Tyrese Haliburton to an injury that could ultimately see the team miss out on their championship window.
Haliburton had a trio of three-pointers in Sunday’s game at Oklahoma City when he suddenly crumpled to the floor in pain with a lower leg injury that left him pounding his right hand on the court late in the first quarter.
The severity of the injury has not been made official by the Pacers but Haliburton’s father shared during a broadcast of the game that it was an Achilles tendon injury, which could keep the face of the franchise out for all or most of the 2025-26 season.
“What happened with Tyrese, all of our hearts dropped,” said Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle.
“But he will be back. I don’t have any medical information about what may or may not have happened, but he’ll be back in time, and I believe he’ll make a full recovery.”
Indiana, who traded for Haliburton in 2022, had been positioned for a roughly three-year window with a core group that included players like Pascal Siakam and Andrew Nembhard.
The Pacers, chasing their first NBA title, reached the penultimate round of the NBA playoffs last year as the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference and enjoyed another deep postseason run this year as the fourth seed.
The 25-year-old Haliburton played a pivotal role throughout the 2025 playoffs and dazzled with a slew of clutch shots and late-game heroics that turned near-certain Pacers losses into victories and got them into their first NBA Finals since 2000.
UNCERTAIN ROAD
Now, however, the team enter an uncertain road ahead given the difficulty of replacing someone like Haliburton, a two-times NBA All-Star and the team’s most valuable player.
“He did some incredible things, like this whole playoff run and this year, and yeah, like I’m just super proud of him,” said Siakam.
“Obviously, it hurts because we couldn’t get it done, and I wanted it so bad for him just because I know that he gave us everything, you know, everything he had. It just hurts that he couldn’t see it through with us.
“But just incredibly proud of him, and everything he’s accomplished. And I know, you know, there’s more. There’s more coming.”
Despite the setback, Haliburton, who is the engine of the Pacers, was there on crutches and wearing a special boot after the final buzzer to greet his teammates as they walked off the floor following their 103-91 loss.
“Doesn’t surprise me at all,” said Pacers guard T.J. McConnell. “That’s who he is as a person, a teammate. He put his ego aside constantly. He could have been in the locker room feeling sorry for himself after something like that happened, but he wasn’t.
“A lot of us were hurting from the loss and he was up there consoling us. That’s who Tyrese Haliburton is. He’s just the greatest, man.”
(Reporting by Frank Pingue, editing by Ed Osmond)
Comments