Who's Really To Blame for Tyrese Haliburton's 4 Points, 0 Field Goals In Game 5?
Tyrese Haliburton has had an incredible 2025 postseason. He's averaging 17.9 points, 9.1 assists and 5.8 rebounds. He's hit a playoff-high 13 shots to tie or take the lead in fourth quarters or overtimes.
But on Monday, when his team had a chance to take a 3-2 lead in the NBA Finals, Haliburton was 0-of-6 from th field, had almost as many turnovers (three) as points (four) and was minus-13 in a 120-109 loss.
It's not an overstatement to say it was a dreadful performance. And in the Finals, it's awfully hard to survive those when they come from your best player.
So, why exactly did Haliburton struggle so mightily in Game 5? We explore the answers below.
His Calf
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First of all, and perhaps most importantly, Haliburton isn't physically at 100 percent. Of course, few players are at this point in the season, but Haliburton is clearly dealing with a specific injury right now.
For long stretches of this series, he's looked far less capable of getting past the first line of defense than he was during the regular season. And now we know it may be because of his right calf.
At halftime of Game 5, ESPN's Shams Charania reported that Haliburton is dealing with "tightness" there. And the broadcast was seemingly able to pinpoint when he may have aggravated the problem.
A calf injury can dramatically limit a player's ability to explode vertically or laterally. It could affect Haliburton's confidence in his shot and his ability to get to the rim.
If he's thinking (or knows) that he's not quite able to attack the way he typically can, he may be avoiding shots on purpose. He may be worried a nagging injury could turn into something he can't play through if he pushes it too hard.
To his credit, Haliburton told reporters after the game, "if I can walk, I want to play," but Indiana absolutely has to have more than his mere presence on the floor to win back-to-back games against the OKC juggernaut.
OKC's Perimeter Defense
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One of the running storylines of this postseason has been the unrelenting, line-pushing and laser-focused perimeter defense of the Thunder, particularly from Luguentz Dort and Alex Caruso.
In seemingly every game this postseason, Dort and Caruso have played with an over-the-top level of physicality and handsiness from the tipoff, setting the tone of the game for the officials (rather than allowing the officials to set it themselves) and then taking advantage of the massive gray area they've created.
Those two have essentially beat up their opponents in all four rounds. And given the fact that so little of the contact they're creating is being whistled, it's hard to blame them. In fact, they deserve credit for dominating the way they have.
And they certainly deserve credit for it in this series.
Haliburton is 4-of-13 from the field when Dort is his nearest defender. He's 3-of-9 against Caruso. And Indiana is putting up just 82.8 points per 100 possessions when Haliburton is working against those two matchups.
They've effectively shut the Pacers' star playmaker down throughout this series, and that was true in Game 5, too.
Beyond what the numbers above say, Haliburton looked timid for most of the game. He only took one shot in the second half. And he almost never pressed the issue as a scorer or even as a passer.
There's time to recover, but to this point, OKC's perimeter defenders have essentially neutralized Haliburton.
His Coach and Teammates
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Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle deserves the same sort of caveat Haliburton got at the top of this piece.
On balance, throughout this postseason, he's been spectacular, perhaps even more so than Hali.
But with his star completely bottled up throughout Game 5, he could've been a bit more creative in getting Haliburton some off-ball, catch-and-shoot or cutting opportunities.
And it's not like Indiana doesn't have some capable playmakers to get Haliburton more easy looks. Andrew Nembhard averaged 5.0 assists in the regular season. Pascal Siakam averaged 5.1 over the three seasons prior to this one.
But those two combined for 10 turnovers in Game 5. Their inability to break down the defense when Haliburton doesn't have the ball has cost the Pacers.
Beyond that, given the way T.J. McConnell played on Monday, it's fair to wonder if he should've played more, including more minutes with Haliburton.
McConnell had 18 points and four assists in 22 minutes. He's generally looked more comfortable against this ridiculous defense than most of the other Pacers, and he looks capable of generating some open looks for the struggling Haliburton.
Tyrese Haliburton Himself
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Haliburton is naturally a pass-first player, and he's clearly dealing with an injury. We have no way of knowing exactly how much pain he's playing through. It could certainly be enough to get a pass.
But if he's healthy enough to be on the floor, he's almost certainly healthy enough to be more aggressive than he was on Monday. Six field-goal attempts isn't near enough. When he's not shooting, he's not putting enough pressure on the defense as a creator.
Whether as a scorer or facilitator, Haliburton has to make a more concerted effort to touch the paint. He's fourth in this series in drives per game, averaging fewer than half of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's number.
An uptick in that number may be antithetical to the ball- and player-movement heavy style that Indiana typically plays, but there have been far too many possessions in which the Pacers just sort of pass the ball back and forth outside the three-point line before hoisting a semi-contested jumper.
Breaking down the first line of defense with the dribble can get a defense scrambling. And passing against a scrambled defense is more likely to cause a breakdown than passing against a shell that's barely prodded.
It's Haliburton's responsibility to find and exploit more weak spots. It's his responsibility to take more than six shots.
Right now, the bookmakers are essentially saying Indiana winning this series is impossible. Minus-1800 works out to about 95 percent implied odds.
Beating those will require the star version of Haliburton we saw for most of the postseason prior to Monday.
