All-Star Game: Pacers’ Haliburton shines despite Malone not playing him
By Joe Lyon
Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton played in his first All-Star game, and despite the fact that the Team LeBron coaching staff seemed to have a problem with Haliburton playing any significant minutes in the game, Haliburton still came out looking great.
His official stat line for the game: 18 points, 1 rebound, 3 assists in 18 minutes.
If you are a Haliburton fan, there were two entire quarters where Haliburton never touched the court. It seemed like everyone was confused as to why Haliburton wasn’t playing and what was going on for the Pacers star.
Did they forget that Tyrese Haliburton is on the Team LeBron roster? Through three quarters of something resembling basketball, he's played the fewest minutes of anybody.
— Bob Kravitz (@bkravitz) February 20, 2023
Through three quarter Haliburton had played a total of 6 minutes. Yes you read that right, 6 minutes. For somebody who many media members picked for their starting eastern point guard, it was a disappointing decision on the part of Michael Malone and the Denver coaching staff.
However, for the time he was in the game, Haliburton fans got to see a little bit of everything from the budding star.
If you wanted to see Haliburton throw down, you were in luck as Tyrese had a dunk toward the beginning of his time on the court.
Tyrese Haliburton throws one down.💪 pic.twitter.com/HVLgxo3xVt
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) February 20, 2023
If you were there to watch Haliburton be a sharpshooter from deep? He had plenty of those as well.
https://twitter.com/Pacers/status/1627495958425608195
Were you there to see the best point guard in the eastern conference throw some no-look assists? Again, you were in luck as Tyrese was out there throwing dimes.
An assist by Tyrese Haliburton, fittingly, for his first offensive stats of the All-Star game: pic.twitter.com/OCxbo3ZFAi
— Tony East (@TonyREast) February 20, 2023
So while he didn’t spend much time on the court, he made the most of his time on the floor and made the Pacers organization proud.
Other notes:
- Before the fourth quarter, the Utah Jazz ownership handed the ball off to Pacers ownership signifying Indy hosting the event next season.
- Indy needs to have better performances next year, specifically the Post Malone intro.
- Jayson Tatum won the MVP and lit it up.
- The game never picked up so if you missed it…..you didn’t miss much.
