Pacer’s Haliburton draws ‘super duper’ praise despite mediocre FIBA game

After two back-to-back games against Slovenia and Spain, the latter of which came down to the wire in Team USA’s biggest scare of the FIBA exhibition games so far, Tyrese Haliburton and Team USA are back in action after 4 days of rest, this time in Abu Dhabi against Greece. Now, this is not the Greece team that you are used to, as they are missing a key contributor, to say the least, in the form of two-time league MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, who withdrew before the exhibition games started.

Giannis aside, this Greek team is still very talented, with the likes of Giannis’ brother Thanasis and Greek basketball legend Dimitris Diamantidis being a few of the names on the Greek basketball roster.

This is Team USA’s fourth of five exhibition games, which end on the 20th with a final game against Germany. This will be five days before the official start of the FIBA World Cup and when the games start to really matter. For the US, the FIBA World Cup kicks off on Saturday, August 26, against New Zealand.

If you were expecting Tyrese to make the starting lineup after averaging 10 assists in the first 3 exhibition games then I have some bad news for you, as the lineup remains unchanged from the first three games, with Jalen Brunson getting the start following his 21 points on 9-for-9 shooting in the previous game.

https://twitter.com/usabasketball/status/1692567040874229857

This wasn’t fazing Haliburton at least, as he was clearly having fun and goofing around prior to the game in Abu Dhabi.

https://twitter.com/NBA/status/1692492770521260364

With that being said, how did Tyrese Haliburton fare in another challenging exhibition game?