Top 6 Tyrese Haliburton moments with Pacers for his 6th birthday

December 4, 2023: First career triple-double in IST upset vs Celtics

Now we have reached the point that some of you have probably been waiting for: the In-Season Tournament run. This was the point where, in the span of two games, both on national TV, Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers showed the NBA World they had officially arrived on the scene.

After the previous year's playoff push ended rather prematurely, Haliburton came out of the gates in the 2023-24 season with a chip on his shoulder and vengeance in his eyes, and no team was safe, not even the top dogs of the NBA.

To demonstrate this, after four wins to kick off the In-Season Tournament run for Indiana, all four going rather unnoticed by the national media, Haliburton and the Pacers finally got a chance to showcase their skills on national TV for the first time in the season, as they were one of two undefeated IST teams at that point and made the IST playoffs, facing a grueling schedule ahead of them.

As their 'reward' for going undefeated through their first four games, Indiana faced the Boston Celtics in the IST quarterfinals, the unquestionably best team in the league and a team Indiana had lost to earlier in the season by a near-record 51 points. Needless to say, the Pacers had a tall task ahead of them, and most people, analysts included, expected Indiana's IST win streak to end at four at the hands of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and company.

Unfortunately for them, someone may have forgotten to tell Haliburton and the rest of the Pacers that they were supposed to lose, as Indiana shocked everyone by going out and beating the best team in the league and advancing to the semifinals.

While this was a mostly balanced attack by the Pacers, the hero of the night was still Haliburton, as he saved his first and, to this date, only career triple-double for the best possible moment, scoring 26 points to go with 10 rebounds and 13 assists in a masterclass of scoring, shooting, and playmaking that even had the all-time greats in awe.

Oh, and another thing. That clutch gene I was talking about earlier? That reared its head again much to the dismay of the Celtics when Haliburton hit a soul-crushing four-point play to break a 105-105 tie and give Indiana a lead they would not relinquish the rest of the way.

This performance was the first time many had been introduced to Haliburton and the Pacers, including several casual fans and fans of exclusively big markets, and Haliburton and company tried their hardest to give them a show worth sticking around for.

Unfortunately for the Pacers next opponent, Tyrese Haliburton would not stop there.