A year ago Tyrese Haliburton was a punchline. Now he’s the NBA’s finest punch-out artist | Indiana Pacers

Self -awareness may be the greatest feature of the Teres Haleporton. This was evident in the Olympics last summer, with all 25 -year -old stars confined to the USA Team team.

Instead of reaching admirers online who kept signs of a tab on the smiles of Indiana Beesers, high fifths and other spiritual offers to compensate for the absence of statistics in court, Haleporton seized the opportunity for himself. After the United States struck France in the final, Haleporton Publishing a photo with a gold medal. “When you are not a nun in the group project and still get A,” he wrote.

This year, however, Haleporton has proven not a joke. Its late heroism is the main reason for Indiana Beesers Just winning the American Professional League title. Over and repeatedly during these qualifiers, Haleporton grabbed the Pacers team to what looked like a certain defeat – and with every development in the M shyamalan that organizes it on the field, it appears that there is no very large moment for him.

As another player may struggle to add it one Playoff Clutch for prominent honor, Haliburton photographed a game or won the game Each round of this year – Just a tremendous achievement, Rigi Miller, the original Haleporton model, can match. In the first round against Milwoki, Haleporton defeated Giannis Anttokounmpo to get a ball throwing game 5 in additional time and closing the chain. Late game 2 of the semi -finals of the conference against Cleveland, Haleporton It sank a triple, lost free throw For the home crowd and took a series of series 2-0. In the opening match of the conference’s final, not just Haleporton Return in Buzzer-Beater three To force additional work against New York. Celebrate the seizure of his neck and retreat A notorious Miller gesture From the 1994 conference series, which led to KNICKS fans again as Miller looked at approval. Then, in the game 1 victory over the thunder in the American Professional League Finals, the Pacers team achieved its only progress at Haliburton The last shot of the game With 0.3 seconds staying to achieve the return of his fifth team while he was lagging behind 15 points or more of these qualifiers – more than that since Miller’s Paces stormed the brackets in 1998.

After calculating the normal season and qualifiers this year, Haliburton 86.7 % is strong The footage taken inside the last minutes (Including additional work) to link or take the initiative. The same fans who have once joined around Haleporton’s smiles for every game in the Olympic Games have turned into analogy with his strange talent Lifting the possibility lines to win To terrorize basketball. Haliburton’s borrowed names include Haliban, and when Thunder in Game 1 of the finals, he includes. Himothy McveighThe play on Oclahoma City launcher (It should go without saying that such dye is in doubtful taste.)

All this has put the league, already under fire for him The scene of the US December League FinalsIn the unfortunate position of having to Astroturf The title of Haleporton is another, the moment, hoping to stop more than that charged more. (Newsflash: It was not discovered with fans.) Hallibron suddenly appeared because the man is currently a development that only a little Indianapolis has seen. In the Olympic Games, Haleporton fought to break the rotation in the United States of America, which included the great shooter, Steve Curry and Derk White, the US Premier League champion, fresh professional from Boston Celkus.

In all, Haleporton sat three games from six games and played 26 minutes in Paris – which is less than anyone in the team. Speak to the beauty of Espn last monthHe was called his Olympic experience, “I examined the ego” and said that online jokes hurt me. (It turned out that the smile was just a cover.) “The basketball made me always happy. For the first time I was not happy.” In addition to insults: Haleporton was a injury to the knee strings that he suffered during the Cinderella presidency during the 2024 qualifiers, which was shortened when the first seeded Celkus in Backders, the sixth seed in the conference finals.

The strikes did not stop there. With the start of the qualifiers in April, Athletic requested the American Professional League players who considered the most indifferent player in the league. With 158 unknown response (or more than a quarter of the cabinet room), Haliburton Easily win – With 14.4 % of the votes – on the great Minnesota Rodi Jubert and Atlanta Bert Tung. But Haleporton, who also confessed to learning a lot of how the US team’s teammates, Jason Tatom (who was also ignored in the Olympic rotation), treated Joel Imbayed with criticizing the American Professional League teams, they did not fail this time. “I have to do something right,” said Haleporton in response to the survey. “My focus is on this cabinet room and secured victories. I know who I am. I am confident of myself and does not care about what others think.”

Haleporton showed a lot throughout the season, wearing a idiot smile while holding hearts from the coast to the coast. All the time when the auxiliary disputes over his game – from the American Professional League prohibited his father, John, from attending games as punishment for him Antetokounmpo; To Haliburton himself almost Pascal Siakam’s acceptance of the MVP Conference Finals Award – with grace and maturity. “When we brought him here, we had a vision,” Haleporton said about Siakam, and he ignored his unwanted echo from Mimi popular from a The former celebrity game in the American Professional League. “We imagined doing something like that, and doing something special.” He only confirms what teammates already know about Haliburton: he does not play in the spotlight.

This was clear again in the victory of Paisers 116-107 over Thunder on Wednesday night-a love affair caused by Haleporton in his defense and distribution of the ball, and Indiana seat Today’s pregnancy. In one of the late game sequences, he managed to beat Gilgeous-Elexander-a strong defender outside the ball-in a half-court victim of the left elbow. Instead of getting rid of the ball to Turner the pieces, which he only had SGA to overcome the corridor, Haleporton fired the ball at Turner to Aaron Nismith at the opposite wing – after that Three was buried on the wrong Gilgos Gilgius tea To give the Pacers team ahead of eight points, leaving three minutes. No, the play was not exciting or seismic like Haleporton despair. But there is no doubt that it was the clutch.

“I mean, I was like three months the last time they made the finals,” Haleporton jokingly told the American Professional League TV while looking at the importance of helping Paces on the first finals journey in the finals 25 years. “As a group, every year we jumped. We are here now, and we do not want to take this time as a Muslim.” Now two wins from the first championship ever in the US Professional League in Pacers (they previously won three titles in ABA alternative), Haliburton is about to convert a series It started with low expectations In one you may live forever in NBA Lore. It is a completely turning to the player who seems to be unable to get the row.