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Stephen A Smith Lashes Out at Pacers' Tyrese Haliburton

Shockingly, the Indiana Pacers are currently leading the 68-win Oklahoma City Thunder 2-1 in the ongoing NBA Finals.

Indiana, who finished with a good-not-great 50-32 regular season finish and the Eastern Conference's No. 4 seed, has now been in an underdog for three straight series. All that "team of destiny" chatter is starting to look pretty darn good.

ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith on the ESPN First Take set at the CFP Fan Central at the George World Congress Center.

ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith on the ESPN First Take set at the CFP Fan Central at the George World Congress Center.

© Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

In the Pacers' 116-107 Game 3 victory on Wednesday, two-time All-NBA Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton finished with 22 points on 9-of-17 shooting from the field (4-of-8 from distance) and 5-of-9 shooting from the foul line, 11 assists, nine rebounds, two steals, a block in 36 minutes of action.

The 6-foot-5 Iowa State product was voted the league's most overrated player in a spring poll of 90 of his peers, conducted by Sam Amick and Josh Robbins of The Athletic.

These playoffs have served as something of a referendum on that vote, which now looks painfully wrong.

Haliburton has been the subject of ire ever since he initially emerged as an All-Star with Indiana circa 2022-23. He's a bit of a throwback player, an oversized lead guard who looks to pass before he tries to score.

During his postgame presser after the Game 3 victory, the 25-year-old reflected on pundit critiques of the contests in which he doesn't have explosive scoring tears, per Tomer Azarly of ClutchPoints.

“Most of the time, the talking heads on the platforms... I couldn’t care less, honestly. Like, what do they really know about basketball?" Haliburton wondered. "The commentary is what it is at this point. We’re in the NBA Finals, two wins away from an NBA championship.”

Across 19 playoff games thus far, Haliburton has been averaging 18.6 points on .473/.343/.804 shooting splits, 9.4 dimes, 5.9 boards, 1.4 steals and 0.8 blocks a night.

One of the most well-compensated of those "talking heads," ESPN's Stephen A. Smith, lashed out at what he perceived to be an attack on his approach to game insights.

"Just in case he was talking about me... players far more accomplished and far more superior have made their efforts trying to call me out," Smith said. "How has that worked out?"

To be clear, Haliburton never addressed Smith by name — although surely Haliburton's relative "superstardom," or lack thereof, has been the subject of frequent ESPN chatter.

"You see how slick these dudes get? They try to point to the media," Smith said. "No! It's your colleagues, it's your contemporaries, present and former, who were questioning you."

Haliburton's game goes beyond scoring output, and Indiana's stunning postseason success this year is a direct credit to that approach.

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