Are There Still Long-Term Concerns Over Tyrese Haliburton?
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The Indiana Pacers have been one of the best teams in the league since the start of 2025, overcoming a poor start to the season to take hold of the 4th spot in the Eastern Conference.
Their defense finally found its footing, and star Tyrese Haliburton finally started playing up to his hefty contract. The results spoke for themselves, with the Pacers climbing back up the Eastern Conference standings to lay claim to the 4th spot. After an extremely rocky start to the season, it seemed like the team had found calmer waters.
Then the Pacers got blown out by the Portland Trail Blazers in Portland on Wednesday, in a game where Haliburton scored 0 points on three shot attempts. This marks the 2nd game this season that the Pacers franchise player has been held scoreless, and suddenly, some of those early season worries have resurfaced.
Yes, the game against the Trail Blazers was the second of a back-to-back on the west coast, and the Pacers have, for whatever reason, struggled mightily in Portland for years now. Haliburton had, up until that point, been playing like the guy the Pacers paid him to be. But with all the money the Pacers are throwing his way, seeing another performance where he made no impact whatsoever must be at least a little concerning.
During the Wednesday edition of The Ride With JMV, Kevin Bowen from The Morning Show joined, and gave his thoughts on Haliburton’s scoreless performance raised more red flags.
“I thought [Rick Carlisle’s] comments postgame were interesting in that he largely just blamed the officiating and the lack of a whistle on Haliburton, and if you chalk that up to just ‘hey, it’s more physicality in today’s NBA’, theoretically that’s not going anywhere. And if you are one that believes ‘hey, physically ramps up in the playoffs’, that’s only going to increase…I think that’s where you do have a little bit of worry. Yes, these Haliburton games, we haven’t seen as much of them lately, as many of them certainly as we saw [in] October and November, in that stretch, but if all of a sudden this blueprint is out there, and you put most of the blame as ‘hey, I think he was being too physical with my guy, I frankly think they’re should be more whistles called”, well if this is just how the game is going to be officiated, and Haliburton can’t deal with that and still produce, I think that’s where you have the concern.”
Listen to JMV’s full conversation with Kevin Bowen and more down below, and tune into The Ride With JMV weekdays from 3-6 on 93.5/107.5 The Fan!