OKLAHOMA CITY — Perhaps Tyrese Haliburton’s limp is nothing. The way he gingerly exited Oklahoma City’s Paycom Center was far different from the confident stroll with which he came into the night.
It could be some WWE-style ploy to get the Oklahoma City Thunder to take him off their “most wanted” list, to get them to let their guard down just a bit as the scene for the 2025 NBA Finals shifts to Indianapolis after OKC tied the series 1-1 with a 123-107 win in Game 2 on Sunday.
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But by his own admission, Haliburton has had “two really poor first halves” in the first two games of the Finals. You make up for it by capping off a late comeback with a game-winning jumper that takes the air out of a home building. There was no such elixir Sunday night, though, as the swarming Thunder defense played to its reputation in stymieing Haliburton and, thus, grinding the Pacers’ offense to a halt.
The stat sheet says Haliburton finished with 17 points and six assists — which is actually a better scoring output than Game 1, but most of those buckets came in the fourth quarter when the Pacers couldn’t mount a cursory comeback. The Thunder never sweated in Game 2 because they kept Haliburton feeling the heat, holding him to three points in the first half, as they retook control and set the terms of engagement to tie the series.
It’s their physical style that kept Haliburton out of the paint and roaming the perimeter, probing and praying for a crack in an impenetrable defense. The paint was off limits in Game 2, and the Pacers were relegated to passing the ball around the perimeter — perhaps paying a bit too much respect to the Thunder’s historic defense.
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“This is who they are defensively,” Haliburton said. “A lot of guys who can guard the ball fly around.”
In the aftermath of a drama-less Thunder win where the most compelling moment of the evening was Hall of Fame coach Don Nelson protesting the Luka Dončić trade by wearing Dončić’s sneakers upon being honored with the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award, all eyes are naturally looking to Haliburton.
Baked into the Thunder’s scheme is giving up a lot of 3s, and giving up a lot in the corner, which is technically the easiest shot. But when their big people are flying around to those spots, you’re not playing your game — it’s actually going right into the Thunder’s plans.
“I think you have to choose on getting 3s your way,” Haliburton said. “We gotta do a better job of getting downhill and just playing from the inside out. You know, they are a team, like you said, it really takes away the paint, does a great job of swarming the ball. It feels like there’s five guys around here every time we’re in the paint.”
Tyrese Haliburton, center, reacts during the second half of Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday, June 8, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
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There’s an up-and-down nature to Haliburton’s production in these playoffs, the sterling moments immediately followed by pseudo-disappearing acts. Or at least an inability to recapture magic two nights later. This isn’t a referendum on his stardom or validation to the “overrated” talk. It just shows how difficult it is to produce on-call.
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Following the wild finish in Game 2 of the semifinals against Cleveland, Haliburton put up a stinker with four points and five assists in a blowout loss at home that temporarily gave the Cavaliers hope. After he painted his Mona Lisa in Game 4 of the East finals against the Knicks — that perfect 32-15-12 game — he followed it up with eight points and six assists in a 111-94 Game 5 loss. This one followed the exact same script, even if Game 1 wasn’t a statistical marvel. The Thunder just applied extra attention, and Haliburton was content in not forcing the action.
“They’re really physical, force the officials to let us play a little bit more,” Haliburton said. “Gotta do a better job of playing through there.”
There was light hinting by the Pacers about the Thunder being given more leeway physically, but nothing close to anything being fine-worthy. Haliburton’s words were the strongest on the matter.
We haven’t reached the “plant a seed with the officials” stage of the Finals quite yet, although a similar performance in Game 3 could produce some crowing from veteran coach Rick Carlisle. Carlisle wanted to take the spotlight off the 25-year-old point guard and focus on the Pacers’ lack of production as a whole.
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“There’s a lot more to the game than just scoring, so everybody’s gotta do more,” Carlisle said. “It starts with the best players, with Tyrese and Pascal [Siakam] and Myles [Turner] and it goes from there. People shouldn’t look at his points and assists and judge how he played, or judge how any of our guys played.
“We’re an ecosystem that has to function together.”
Haliburton is the biggest cog in the ecosystem, but is also the player the Thunder are best equipped to handle with physical play. Lu Dort and Jalen Williams are on the All-Defensive team, and Alex Caruso might as well be — there’s no rest or easy matchup for Haliburton to pick at. And with Siakam struggling to create his own offense (3-for-13 shooting), the Pacers’ options to get reliable shots dwindle.
It sounds simple, but the Pacers do have to screen better to spring Haliburton while he’s on the ball. Caruso and Dort navigate screens as well as anyone in the league, so the Pacers have to walk the line of being physical without drawing too much of the ire from the officials.
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“Screening, there’s an art to it,” Turner said. “You have to be able to set the guy up. It’s a matter of timing it and getting on the same page. There’s plenty of stuff we can do. But I don’t think we did a good enough job of executing.”
Haliburton was far more aggressive in the fourth quarter when he played off the ball a lot more, which might be what Carlisle was hinting at when referring to an ecosystem. He’s not the point guard who needs to control every possession and it’s a gift in not being in the same spot all the time. That’s how the Thunder were able to corral Anthony Edwards in the conference finals. They knew exactly where he would be at all times.
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“We had some success in me playing off the pitch, flying around, rather than that high-ball screen, which I feel I’m really successful at,” Haliburton said.
The problem is, the Thunder are excellent at defending that and, by playing smaller, they can switch and chase, matching the speed of the Pacers’ offense with some of their own.
“That gives them a chance to load up, pack the paint,” Haliburton said. “They got a couple steals in there, I had some really dumb turnovers tonight. They’re giving me different looks.”
He’s not running from accountability or the moment. It’s just the moment isn’t as easy as it looks and it’s doubly hard to repeat such rare feats.
Problem is, the Pacers need three more of those rarities just to have a shot.
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