Tyrese Haliburton continues to prove everyone wrong as he leads the Pacers

For the third night in a row, Tyrese Haliburton has proved the doubters wrong.

Ever since his decline in production following his hamstring injury in January, Tyrese Haliburton has been something of a laughing stock with NBA fans. Many thought his incredible run to start the season was a fluke, and his decline in the second half of the season, especially in the couple of months after the All-Star break was more indicative of who he really was.

Going into the playoffs, it was hard to pinpoint many people outside the Pacers fanbase who gave Tyrese Haliburton much leeway going into the playoffs. In fact, many thought his play style was not built for the playoffs and that teams would take advantage of his lack of aggressiveness on the offensive end and his poor defense.

To the naked eye, this looked to be the case for the first round series against Milwaukee. Especially in the first game, Haliburton did not play well, with his nine points on six shots underlining every issue people thought he had and would carry with him into the playoffs. While he did pick it up for the rest of the series, never shooting less than ten shots a game for the next five games, the agenda of Tyrese Haliburton being an inefficient playoff dropper was still prevalent.

Unfortunately, for Haliburton detractors, this second round series against New York is where that narrative will seemingly die. After another pitiful Game 1 performance where he only scored six points on six shot attempts, Haliburton went nuclear for the next two games, averaging 34.5 points on 22.5 shot attempts per game and a blistering 55.6% from the field as well as 48% from deep. Most importantly, Indiana got the Game 3 win to keep their season alive.

Game 4 was the ultimate knockout blow to all of the narratives around Haliburton. In only 27 minutes played due to the game being out of reach rather early, Haliburton put up 20 points on 8/15 shooting and 4/10 from deep while letting the Knicks know exactly how he felt about them, even telling Donte DiVincenzo that he could not guard him after nailing a tough three-pointer before the halftime buzzer.

This was all done during a 32-point clobbering of the Knicks in Game 3, which ended in a 121-89 win, tying up the series as Indiana took care of business both nights in Gainbridge. In the process, Tyrese Haliburton essentially silenced every single doubter who claimed he was not built for it.

Over the past few months, people have been calling Haliburton a litany of names, ranging from 'fraud' to 'overrated' to even saying he is not a leader. At this point, there is little credibility to any of these claims, and if Haliburton finishes the job and leads the Indiana Pacers to their first Conference Finals in only his age 24 season, there will be nothing anyone can say anymore.