Tyrese Haliburton Says Pacers Have 'Real' NBA Title Expectations Entering Playoffs

Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton isn't underselling what he believes his team can achieve in the 2025 NBA playoffs.

"I think even last year we were just satisfied with being in the playoffs," he said Indy' first-round series with the Milwaukee Bucks, per the Indianapolis Star's Dustin Dopirak. "Everything from there was kinda playing with house money to be honest with you. This year I think we have real expectations to do something special as a group and when I say something special, I mean a championship. That's definitely an expectation we've had since the start of the year. That doesn't change."

The Pacers finished with the fourth-best record in the Eastern Conference (50-32), and they've been a different team since the All-Star break. They ranked 16th in net rating (plus-0.1) heading into mid-February, and they climbed to seventh (plus-5.6) in their 29 games after the regular season resumed, per NBA.com.

Haliburton was a driving force behind that improvement. He has averaged 20.6 points on 53.3 percent shooting along with 11.0 assists since the All-Star break.

Even the most diehard partisans in Indianapolis probably don't consider the Pacers to be one of the biggest threats to the Boston Celtics' repeat bid. But you can at least talk yourself into the idea of Indiana having a path to the Finals and maybe even more.

The Celtics have lacked the sharpness they displayed en route to last year's title triumph. The top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers haven't advanced past the conference semifinals with their current core. The same is true for the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, the Oklahoma City Thunder. The New York Knicks still look vulnerable after acquiring Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges.

Haliburton and his teammates are right to raise the bar for their expectations much higher than they did for the 2024 postseason.