Tyreese Halliburton finished Game 2 in the NBA Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder with 17 points. That’s more points than his 14th game.
However, there are issues with its performance. Not only is the fact that the Pacers lost 107-123, but also that 12 of the 17 Tyrees Halliburton points came later in the fourth quarter.
Despite being on the floor for 17 minutes, Halliburton only collected three points throughout the first half.
That could be the argument behind the Pacers’ loss.
After the game, head coach Rick Carlisle gave an honest response to Halliburton’s performance.
For Carlisle, it is not fair to judge his team’s performance based solely on Halliburton’s struggle in the first half. That makes sense given the fact that Haliburton is less used compared to other stars in the NBA.
“Well, there’s more to the game than score, so everyone has to do more. Start with the best players, then start with Tyree and Pascal (Siacam) and Miles (Turner),” Carlisle said.
“You shouldn’t look at his points and support and judge how he played. That’s not how we build our team. We’re an ecosystem that we have to work together,” he added.
“Statistics, we managed to score enough points to win the game, but it doesn’t matter who gets them and how they get them,” Carlisle explained.
The seven pacer players collected double digit points in game 2, but the fact that they never reached 20 points also poses a problem.
The Pacers shot under 40% in the first half and did not dominate the rebound to create a comeback like in Game 1.
When asked whether the issue was related to the decision to play against the two bigs by Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmglen, Carlisle calmly dealt with it.
“I don’t know if the lineup they used didn’t affect them,” he said. OKC said that Cathon Wallace decided to start for Hartenstein and play for Small, which also caused problems.
The Thunder’s ability to find success in multiple lineup configurations is a critical challenge to Indiana’s coordination strategy.