Tyrese Haliburton has done it again. For the fourth consecutive playoff round, the Indiana Pacers guard has completed an unbelievable comeback with a game-tying or, in this case, game-winning shot. In Game 1 of the NBA Finals, the Oklahoma City Thunder led by 15 early in the fourth quarter, but the Pacers never went away. They slowly chipped away at the deficit throughout the final frame before a wild closing sequence that resulted in a stunning 111-110 Indiana win.
After losing a challenge with around 22 seconds remaining, the Pacers managed to get a stop on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and pull in the rebound. Rather than calling timeout, they decided to play it out as not to allow the Thunder to get their defense set. As they’ve done so many times this postseason, the Pacers found Haliburton, and he delivered with a midrange winner with 0.3 seconds left on the clock.
“We got the stop and coach trusts us in those moments to not call timeout, trusts me in those moments,” Haliburton said after the game. “Guys trust me, and just tried to make a play. Basketball is fun, man. Winning is fun. That’s a great win for us.”
Haliburton now has a game-tying or game-winning shot in the closing seconds in all four rounds of the postseason:
- Trailing 118-117 in Game 5 of the first round against the Milwaukee Bucks, Haliburton drove into a series-ending layup. The Pacers trailed that game by as many as 20 points in total and by seven with 40 seconds remaining in overtime.
- Trailing 119-117 in Game 2 of the second round against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Haliburton rebounded a missed free throw, walked back behind the arc, and sank a game-winning 3-pointer. The Pacers trailed that game by as many as 20 points in total and by seven with 57.1 seconds remaining.
- Trailing 125-123 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals against the New York Knicks, Haliburton made a game-tying jumper to send it to overtime as time expired. It initially looked as though it was also a game-winning shot, but Haliburton’s foot was on the 3-point line. The Pacers won the game in overtime. They trailed by as many as 17 points in the game and by nine with 58.1 seconds remaining.
Considering the stage, Thursday’s Finals shot was probably the most impressive yet. Put it all together and this is one of the most statistically improbable runs of all time. Statistician Micah Adams noted that, based on Indiana’s win probability at its absolute lowest point in all four games, the odds of the Pacers winning each of the four were roughly one-in-75 million.
Haliburton now has five shots to either tie or take the lead in the final three seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime in a playoff game. During the play-by-play era, which dates back to the 1996-97 season, only LeBron James has made more. That means that Haliburton’s four clutch shots this postseason alone tie or exceed any other player’s career total. Notably, Haliburton has now made one such shot in all four rounds of a single postseason. No one else has ever done that.
Indiana’s 15-point fourth-quarter comeback ties the biggest in Finals history over the last 50 years. The Pacers now lead the NBA Finals 1-0 and have stolen home-court advantage from the Thunder in unbelievable fashion — but at this point maybe we should just start to expect it.
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