Indiana Pacers: Tyrese Haliburton’s Performance vs Spain

Yes, even in World Cup play, Pacers’ star Tyrese Haliburton and the rest of Team USA cannot escape back-to-backs!

A mere 24 hours after beating a Luka Doncic-less Slovenian team by 30 points, Tyrese Haliburton and Team USA faced their biggest challenge yet in the top-ranked Spanish National Team. After 2 relatively easy victories against Puerto Rico and aforementioned Slovenia, Steve Kerr’s squad finally got a real test of their skills ahead of the FIBA World Cup on the 25th.

Team USA’s challenges aside, how did the man of the hour perform under pressure?

Well, after getting into double digits for the first time in exhibition play with 10 points and 6 assists in the Slovenia game and logging 12 assists in the first game against Puerto Rico, Tyrese Haliburton put up another respectable performance, this time against heightened competition and with more eyes on him, despite an even more spectacular performance by the very man starting above him.

And yes, if you were wondering, the starting lineups stayed the same for the third exhibition game.

https://twitter.com/usabasketball/status/1690809554861207552

However, Haliburton wasn’t about to let something as small as a bench role prevent him from making his mark on the game, as you will see.

Tyrese vs Spain: First Half

Steve Kerr would again try to get Haliburton some early run, only waiting about 7 minutes to check him in, with 3:40 left in the first half. This time, instead of getting an early assist, Haliburton would call his own number, draining a baseline jumper about 2 minutes after checking in.

Tyrese would not wait long afterward to get his first assist, hitting up Cam Johnson, one of his favorite targets so far, for the 3 at the start of the second quarter.

My statement about Cam Johnson being Tyrese’s favorite target so far rings true, as less than a minute later, Tyrese would hit him up for another open 3.

https://twitter.com/Pacers/status/1690817445324574720

Tyrese would continue his first-half passing masterclass, dishing out 5 more assists in the second quarter alone for a total of 7 assists at the half, including this steal and tip to Austin Reaves for a fastbreak dunk at the end of the second quarter.

Tyrese vs Spain: Second Half

Haliburton wouldn’t spend much time on the bench in the second half, getting subbed in with 6:51 left in the third quarter and immediately going to work, hitting up Jalen Brunson for his 8th assist of the game and Brunson’s 18th point.

Tyrese would go quiet for the next 5 or so minutes, only committing a turnover before grabbing a defensive rebound and getting it to Austin Reaves for a jumper and his 9th assist of the game.

Tyrese would be a bit more active in the 4th quarter, getting his 10th assist of the game a mere 25 seconds in, hitting up Jaren Jackson Jr, and shortly after, diming up Mikal Bridges with a left-handed cross-court pass for his 11th assist of the game.

Tyrese would not be done with the distribution, however, as he would notice Spain helping off the strong side corner, which led to him driving and kicking out his 12th assist of the game to a waiting Austin Reaves in the corner.

But the finest play of the game for Tyrese might have been this steal and tomahawk finish on the fast break, converting defense to offense very efficiently.

https://twitter.com/Pacers/status/1690835358110433282

This would be the last of Haliburton’s contributions to the game, as he would get subbed out with a good chunk of the 4th quarter left, and would not see any more playing time for the rest of the game, as Jalen Brunson and Anthony Edwards took over backcourt duties from there.

Haliburton’s Final Stats and Takeaways

When it was all said and done, Tyrese Haliburton put up another solid performance, scoring 4 points, dishing out 12 assists (his second double-digit assist game), pulling down 4 rebounds, and even getting 3 steals in just under 22 minutes of action as Team USA hung in there to beat Spain by 10 points in a very tightly contested exhibition game that could be a sign of things to come for the tournament.

For the third straight game, Haliburton looked to push the pace as soon as he stepped on the floor, with his 12 assists indicative of how well he was setting up his teammates and being unselfish, perhaps a little too much.

Haliburton was great in coming up with advantages for Team USA and helping them take the lead and maintain it in the final stretches of the game, despite perhaps not being acknowledged enough for that.

In fact, in the 21 minutes of action Tyrese got, and the 12 assists he handed out, he really wasn’t named as much of a key contributor by the commentators at all, mostly doing his work in silence.

This lack of appreciation has not stopped Tyrese from doing what he does best, as he has dished out 30 assists in the 3 exhibition games he has played in. Haliburton has played just over 60 minutes total in the 3 games he has played so far, which equates to one assist approximately every 2 minutes of game time, which is a fantastic rate.

Nevertheless, Haliburton was also a very nice fit in the backcourt with starter Jalen Brunson, who scored a team-best 21 points on a perfect 9/9 shooting. Haliburton next to Brunson seemed the perfect backcourt fit, as Brunson is more of a shooting guard in a point guard’s body and Haliburton is more of a true point guard, so their being on the floor at the same time was a recipe for success.

Haliburton also worked well in other lineups, most notably his inclusion with Austin Reaves and Cam Johnson getting some love from social media.

And now I get to the elephant in the room, which is the low point total. Despite Brunson piling on the points with 21, there should be no reason that Tyrese Haliburton, a man who averaged close to 21 points last season with close to 50/40/90 splits should only be scoring 4 points. He wasn’t even awful from the field, it was just that he wasn’t getting touches and didn’t even look interested in scoring most of the time.

Add on the fact that Team USA was looking lost on a lot of possessions today, and you could imagine that Tyrese’s scoring potential could be of some help.

Nonetheless, we do have to remind ourselves that this is only the third of five exhibition games and the real FIBA World Cup tournament does not start for another 12 days, so Haliburton and Team USA have plenty of time to get to know each other and find out what works for them. I have plenty of faith in Steve Kerr and Erik Spoelstra, and I know that they will do what’s best for the success of Team USA.

All in all, in 3 games and about 20 minutes of action per game, Tyrese Haliburton is averaging 7 points, 4 rebounds, and leading Team USA with 10 assists per game as they have gone undefeated in exhibition play so far.

I am looking very forward to seeing what the rest of the exhibitions and the upcoming tournament have to offer, and I will be keeping a close eye on what Tyrese Haliburton brings to the table and what this could possibly mean for the 2023-24 season where Indiana is expected by a lot of people to be a dark horse playoff team in the Eastern Conference.

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