Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton knew what the Indiana Pacers had to do to defeat the New York Knicks in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals ... but that doesn't mean the Pacers listened exactly.
At one point during the night, Haliburton, who was mic'd up, could be heard telling his teammates that they had to "dominate the Brunson-less minutes" of the contest—as in, the minutes of the game where Knicks guard Jalen Brunson was not on the court.
Well, not too long after that, Brunson did briefly exit ... and the Knicks went up 14-0 without him, bringing the score to 108-92. Not exactly heeding Haliburton's advice are we, Pacers?
Take a look at that from Haliburton below:
Tyrese Haliburton, leader and hype man 👏😤
— NBA (@NBA) May 22, 2025
He's on the mic for Game 1 of the East Finals on TNT 🎙️ pic.twitter.com/V5U42fjOIL
It was good thought from the Pacers point guard, though; by the end, his Knicks counterpart led the game with a stunning 43 points across 38 minutes.
And even still, Indiana managed to overcome their 14-point deficit and send the game to overtime with a heroic field goal from Hali (at which point he also pulled out the Reggie Miller "choke" celebration a second too early).
One overtime period later the Pacers had pulled it off, defeating N.Y. at MSG for a thrilling 138-135 win.
Despite the result, the Pacers will still try to win the Brunson-less minutes in Game 2 on Friday night.
More NBA on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Tyrese Haliburton’s Mic’d Up Game Plan for Pacers Did Not Work, But Indiana Still Won.
