Since joining the Indiana Pacers at the 2022 trade deadline, Tyrese Haliburton has become the team’s best player. His first full season with the team (2022-23) resulted in Indiana missing the playoffs and Play-In Tournament. Of course, the Pacers were a surprise Eastern Conference Finals participant last year, and they are currently now in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. After losing their last game (but still leading the series), a stat shows why the Pacers need Tyrese Haliburton to be much more aggressive than he was in the previous outing.
Tyrese Haliburton Stat Shows Pacers Need Him More Assertive
Tyrese Haliburton Needs To Force Up More Shots
The Pacers surprised nearly everyone by taking the first two games against the Cleveland Cavaliers, with both victories on the road. They couldn’t take a commanding 3-0 advantage though after Friday’s 126-104 defeat to Cleveland.
It was the 25-year-old Halliburton’s 23rd postseason outing with the Pacers. Game 3 marked his career-low for points in a playoff game. He finished the game just 2-8 from the field without a free-throw attempt, giving himself just four points. It was just the third time in a playoff game that Haliburton scored in single digits.
The two-time All-Star is certainly one of the game’s top distributors, but Indiana is at its best when he looks to score as well. There is a postseason stat for Haliburton which shows that to be the case. The Pacers have gone 14-9 in the playoffs during the Haliburton era. In five of those games, he has attempted less than 10 field goals. They have lost all of them. That means Indiana is 14-4 when he attempts at least 10, and they are 3-0 when he attempts at least 20.
The Pacers are 0-5 in the playoffs when Tyrese Haliburton attempts less than 10 shots.
When Haliburton is aggressive, Indiana’s postseason record over the past two years is 14-4.
If Indiana wants to take a 3-1 series lead, they will need Haliburton assertive early as a scorer. pic.twitter.com/aQ7fUaKd4I
— Evan Sidery (@esidery) May 10, 2025
While it wasn’t as big a difference in the regular season, the Pacers did play worse the less often Haliburton attempted shots. They went 3-5 when he attempted less than 10 shots in the regular season, and 43-22 when he attempted more. Indiana also went 6-0 when Haliburton shot at least 19 times.
Game 4 Sunday Night
It had been the game prior (Game 2) where Haliburton played hero. A stunning comeback by the Pacers was finished after the 6-foot-5 point guard grabbed a rebound off his own free-throw miss, then splashed the game-winning three-pointer with just one second left.
In the first two games against Cleveland, Haliburton posted averages of 20.5 points, 8.5 assists, 6.0 rebounds, 2.0 blocks, and just 0.5 turnovers. In the five outings in the opening round against the Milwaukee Bucks, he had averages of 17.6 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 11.6 assists. Those averages are a far cry from the four points, five assists, zero rebounds, and three turnovers that Haliburton had in Game 3.
Game 4 takes place on Sunday night in Indiana. The first three games have been taken by the road team (the road team has also taken all three contests in the other Eastern Conference Semifinals series as well between the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics). For that trend to finally end, Haliburton certainly has to look for his shot more frequently than he did in Game 3.
Photo credit: © Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images
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