They say time heals all wounds. The old cliché will certainly be tested after the most heartbreaking night in Indiana Pacers history last night.
Because the Pacers didn’t just lose Game 7. That would have been something we could all handle with appropriate disappointment. Instead the final score and the loss in the biggest game in their NBA history feels like a footnote to what happened to Tyrese Haliburton with 4:55 left in the first quarter.
It was immediately clear that he tore his Achilles. I burst into tears in an instant at the sight of that awful rubber band motion shooting up his right leg. Watching him shake his head yelling “No,” slamming his hands on the ground, utterly devastated knowing that worst-case scenario of playing on a calf strain had come is an image that’s never going to leave my head. ESPN certainly made sure of it by showing it 30 more times during the remaining hours that felt like weeks of the broadcast.
To make matters worse, Haliburton looked more ready for the moment than anyone else on the floor early as he hit 3 of his 4 3-point attempts. He was talking back to someone courtside, doing the exact thing that he had done last year on the road in Game 7 at Madison Square Garden and then that happened. I expected to cry in either direction last night but not for it to start during the first quarter.
“What happened with Tyrese, all of our hearts dropped,” Rick Carlisle said after the game.
The Pacers were resilient as they always were during this season and even led by one point at halftime but they just didn’t have enough to finish it off without their offensive engine. Who could blame them after what they had seen and been through? I was catatonic just watching from home, giant pit in my stomach, numb to every turnover and mistake the Pacers made as TJ McConnell, Bennedict Mathurin, and Pascal Siakam tried their best to keep hope alive and make Haliburton’s sacrifice mean something.
“We needed Ty out there. He’s been good for us all year. For him to go down at the beginning of the game like that, it like sucked the soul out of us,” Obi Toppin said. “I ain’t going to say out of everybody but I don’t feel like I played good because I was thinking about it the whole day and I felt like it was my fault.”
Toppin told Tony East that he felt that it was his fault because he was the one who passed the ball to Haliburton before the injury occurred.
It’s not your fault, Obi.
This just isn’t the ending that Tyrese Haliburton, the Indiana Pacers, and the fanbase deserved after one of the most special playoff runs in sports history filled with amazing comebacks and iconic clutch moments. They deserved to go out with the ability to give it their best shot against an elite opponent and be able to walk off the floor on their own power, knowing they gave it everything they had, able to live with the results either way. Instead, we had Tyrese Haliburton on crutches in the tunnel and Reggie Miller consoling Ty’s teammates as they walked back to the locker room after the game.
“To go down like that and be selfless and just continuing to cheer for us, and even though he can’t play, I think that just speaks volumes to who Tyrese Haliburton is, one of the greatest human beings I’ve come in contact with,” TJ McConnell said of Haliburton greeting every player in the tunnel after the game. “Great teammate, obviously hurting for him.”
“[Tyrese] authored one of the great individual playoff runs in the history of the NBA with dramatic play after dramatic play,” Rick Carlisle said. “It was just something that no one’s ever seen and he did it as 1 of 17. You know, that’s the beautiful thing about him. As great a player as he is, it’s always a team thing.”
Haliburton risked his health knowing the risks that were at stake by playing on a calf strain but he wanted to be out there with his teammates on what will likely be the biggest game of his entire career. You can’t blame him and you can’t blame the organization for allowing him to make this decision in this situation but he paid the ultimate price.
It’s just unfair. It sucks. There’s no justice in this. No karma. No basketball gods. There was no destined ending for this team. Just a bunch of awfulness that we all have to sit with for months on end.
Haliburton will be a legend forever but he already would have been without the injury after putting together the greatest clutch run in the history of the sport. I don’t think that’s hyperbole with four game-winning or game-tying shots in the final seconds of playoff games. One in each of the four rounds. No one does that in their entire careers, let alone the same postseason. And this unforgettable ride ends in utter tragedy.
It was the most fun season of any team, in any sport, that I’ve ever followed. This is easily my favorite Indiana Pacers team ever. My heart is broken for every one of these guys that gave their all, never gave up no matter the odds and somehow overcame them all until the bitter end only for that to happen in the biggest game of their lives.
There’s no big silver lining here. I wrote about the journey meaning everything ahead of Game 7 and how it offered an opportunity to lessen the burden of all the previous heartbreaks for the fanbase only for it to instead throw the most devastating moment in franchise history on top of the list. The Pacers will play basketball again but they won’t be whole until the start of the 2026-27 season and who knows how much of this current roster will remain by then.
Things change fast in the NBA and a team that looked poised to go into the luxury tax next season will now have to weigh whether they can do that in the immediate future, knowing this next year is likely lost and repeater penalties make the tax even more punitive. At least they have their 2026 first round pick back? Hopefully you’re feeling more resilient than I am and can grit your way through nearly anything much like the 2024-25 Indiana Pacers.
I love this team. I will forever.
Tyrese Haliburton
Pascal Siakam
Myles Turner
Andrew Nembhard
Aaron Nesmith
TJ McConnell
Obi Toppin
Bennedict Mathurin
Ben Sheppard
Jarace Walker
Thomas Bryant
Tony Bradley
Johnny Furphy
James Johnson
Isaiah Jackson
Thank you.
— iPacers.com (@iPacersblog) June 23, 2025
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