3 Positives, 3 negatives from Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton’s FIBA World Cup

3 Positives, 3 negatives from Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton’s FIBA World Cup: Negative- Minutes and Touches

While Tyrese Haliburton showed obvious flashes of being the best player on Team USA at times, head coach Steve Kerr was insistent (some would say stubborn) on keeping Haliburton on the bench and having him lead the second unit. He was usually kept to around 19-21 minutes.

For the tournament, Tyrese Haliburton averaged 21.5 minutes per game, a figure heavily influenced by his 31 minutes in Team USA’s OT loss to Canada in the bronze medal game. If you take that game away, Haliburton averaged 20.3 minutes per game, which is more appropriate for how much playing time he was earning.

Of course, there were times when Kerr gave in and left Haliburton in for the fourth quarter, or overtime, such as their win against Montenegro, where Haliburton played the entire fourth quarter. But the norm was still seeing him stuck at about 20 minutes per game, which infuriated some fans on social media, especially fellow Pacers fans.

In addition to the minutes problem, Haliburton also struggled to get touches in Team USA’s loaded offense, sometimes even resorting to begging for the ball, as his teammates seemed to ignore him.

https://twitter.com/TheBoxAndOne_/status/1692584296878416313

This is another one of the reasons Haliburton may have worked better as a starter. While Team USA’s starting backcourt of Jalen Brunson and Anthony Edwards was plenty talented, there was not enough playmaking to comfortably lead an offense.

That, in part, is what led to Team USA’s undoing near the end of the tournament. All the while, Haliburton was still a huge factor on the court, and his +/- regularly showed his efforts, despite the losses.