by Mahanth

We need to talk about Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers. The NBA has no idea what’s coming if they stay healed up for the 2026-27 season. NO IDEA. The national disrespect circus still continues.

I just laugh.

Pacer nation is exactly where we always want to be: in small-market skunkworks stealth mode. Not under the radar, but off the radar’s observable universe.

It’s fair to be impressed all we want by the Pugnaciously Parabolic Pacers Playoff Pushes (a veritable PPPPP Pentagon) of 2024 and 2025, which shocked the world. I was so moved as a diehard fan and cancer patient those two otherwise worst years of my life, I published a free mini-book about how they helped save my life, as a barely legal Carlisle/Haliburton Brain Trust led Indiana to a filthy, borderline Demonic 5-2 playoff series record dismantling the most elite teams on the planet in one devastating stretch or another. I dare you to convince me it wouldn’t be 8-0 and two Larry O’Brien trophies perched in downtown Indianapolis if Haliburton finished the series against Boston and OKC in good health. Healthy-Haliburton is a whopping 5-0 in playoff series to date.

I. Dare. You.

Magical as the 2024 and particularly 2025 runs were [ they literally ran (ships of) fools out the gym like a littoral combat ship full-steam ] let me propose something even more “magical-er.” Something Tyrese Haliburton himself may not necessarily agree with, because they lost the game in the middle of a losing season. It happened on February 11, 2022. Immediately after a shocked Haliburton “cried uncontrollably” en route to Indiana because Sacramento traded him away, he made his debut in a Pacers uniform. Something happened the NBA may never witness again in our lifetimes, like the 4 buzzer-beating playoff daggers in summer 2025: Haliburton’s Pacers debut. I watched the game live on TV, barely even knowing who this young playa was. I’ll never forget certain aspects of that ballgame till my cremation day.

What’s the big deal worth writing home about, sports fans? It’s not Hali’s admittedly solid stat line in his Indiana debut [ 23 points, 6 assists, 3 steals, 4 threes ]. Not even that in his first game playing alongside new teammates, new coaches, new offensive and defensive schemes, in a new time zone. Paired with no incumbent starting center, and no All-Star on the roster, thanks to Domantas Sabonis, son of an Arvydas, being dealt in the trade.

The front office was on to something, way before I was, by doubling down on someone who wasn’t an All-Star, not yet. Allow me to present to you Exhibit A, the entire reason for this essay’s existence without a single basketball player’s name even attached to it:

“There’s no I in team,” said every youth athletics coach, ever. In the loss, look at the Cleveland-Indiana score in the first quarter ever of the first game of the Haliburton era, ever. A hodgepodge of new and old players unfamiliar with each other on a 19-38 team racked up a whopping 47 points in that quarter- a blistering pace with a run rate of 188 over 4 quarters.

What’s in a number? 47 first-quarter points for anyone, against any team, by this particular team, strikes me as historic.

The ball moved around with, dare I say it, demonic energy. I had never seen anything like it from the Pacers, ever. I couldn’t believe the efficiency and percentages, and I’m a numbers nerd. A bunch of different people scored from all over the shop and hit open 3-pointers again and again, regardless of position. Haliburton was the shiny new engine that made the team offense run, giving us a little taste of what the muscle car could do. The Cavs scored a respectable 28 in comparison. This quarter was the harbinger of a revolutionary new era of fun-to-watch shootout basketball that has continued ever since. One can argue the opposing team and coach had no more idea of what to expect with this bunch than fans in the stands did, and that’s how we get to 47. It was “random” basketball in every sense of the word. That’s the point I’m trying to make here.

I bet I know what opponents can expect from now on: pain.