Tyrese Haliburton Suffered Right Leg Injury In Game 7 Loss
He was outside the locker room, a walking boot on his right leg,
standing on crutches, greeting his teammates as they came off the floor at the
end of their season. There were hugs. There were tears.
The end, by any measure, was heartbreaking. And the pain of Game 7
of NBA Finals is going to linger over the Pacers for a long, long time.
According to the report by Associated Press (AP), Tyrese Haliburton
— who was playing with a strained right calf — tumbled to the court in a heap, immediately began
punching the floor in frustration and needed to
be helped to the locker room in Game 7 of the NBA Finals against the Oklahoma
City Thunder on Sunday night.
Indiana had a one-point lead at halftime, but in the end, the
Pacers lost their best player, then their verve, then their shot at the NBA
title. The Thunder won 103-91, after the Pacers managed only 43 points in the
second half.
“Doesn’t surprise me at all,” Pacers guard TJ
McConnell said when asked if he was surprised Haliburton was there at the end
to console teammates. “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. He was up greeting
us. ... That’s who Tyrese Haliburton is. He’s just the greatest, man.”
John Haliburton, Tyrese’s father, told ABC late in the first half
it was an Achilles tendon injury, as the replays of the play clearly indicated.
An MRI is still likely to confirm that, but there are simple tests — without a
need for imaging — that doctors typically use to determine whether there is a
serious injury to the tendon.
The Pacers quickly ruled out Haliburton for the rest of Game 7
with that they called a lower right leg injury, and replays appeared to
show something popping in the back of his leg.
The injury happened with 4:55 left in the first quarter.
Haliburton put no weight on the
leg and had his face wrapped in towels as he was
taken to the Pacers’ locker room for evaluation. Virtually the entire Indiana
playing, coaching and medical staff surrounded him on the court once he got
hurt. Even Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander quickly went over, touched
Haliburton on the head as the Pacers guard lay face-down on the court and
offered a kind word.
“All of our hearts dropped,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “But
he will be back.”
To their credit, the Pacers tried to rally for their teammates.
But the Thunder were the best team in the league all season, finishing 68-14 —
and in the second half Sunday night, with the title on the line, they were much
the best again.
Haliburton, who had been dealing with leg issues in the series and
had the calf issue flare up in Game 5, had been getting all sorts of treatment
to get the calf in good enough shape for him to play in the last two games of
the NBA Finals. He played well in Game 6, and Game 7 started promisingly — with
Haliburton making three deep 3-pointers.
And then he was gone.
“I think I have to be as smart as I want to be,” Haliburton said
before Game 6 last week. “Have to understand the risks, ask the right
questions. I’m a competitor. I want to play. I’m going to do everything in my
power to play. That’s just what it is.”
Haliburton, part of the team that won Olympic gold at the Paris
Games last summer, was using hyperbaric chamber therapy, massage, needle
treatments, electronic stimulation, special tape and a wrap to help treat the
calf strain. He said after Game 6 that his treatment was going on virtually
around the clock.
John Haliburton told ABC sideline reporter Lisa Salters that his
son was surrounded by family and watching the game in the Pacers’ locker room.
“He said that Tyrese is doing as well as he can be under the
circumstances,” Salters said on the broadcast.
Injuries have been a huge factor in these playoffs. Boston star Jayson Tatum was
wheeled off with a right Achilles tendon tear
that essentially ended any realistic hope the Celtics had of defending the
title they won last season. He will surely miss at least some of next season as
well.
Milwaukee’s Damian Lillard also
tore an Achilles tendon in the Bucks’ first-round series against Indiana. Golden State’s Stephen
Curry ran out of time before his injured
hamstring could allow him to return to the Warriors’ second-round series
against Minnesota. If the Los Angeles Lakers’ season had gone past the first
round, LeBron James would
have been sidelined with a knee sprain.
James was watching Game 7 and immediately posted his reaction to
Haliburton’s injury on social media. It was a one-word expletive, which didn’t
need much explanation.
For Lillard, for Tatum — and now, quite probably, for Haliburton —
the issues will linger into next season or rob of them of the chance to play in
2025-26 entirely.
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