Tyrese Haliburton hit another big shot as the Pacers stunned the Knicks in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals. Are we are looking at the best clutch star of this century?
For the third time this postseason, the Indiana Pacers found themselves down by two points with less than 10 seconds remaining Wednesday night.
And once again, Tyrese Haliburton hit a big-time shot to (eventually) lead his team to an improbable 138-135 overtime victory over the New York Knicks in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals at Madison Square Garden.
The shocking development took place with Jalen Brunson, the 2024-25 NBA Clutch Player of the Year, playing for the other side.
After being named the most overrated player in the league by his contemporaries, Haliburton has proven his naysayers to be foolish as he’s one of the best closers in the league right now.
But just where does Haliburton rank among clutch players in the NBA? And is there any chance we’re looking at the best clutch star of this century?
The Methodology
To answer these questions, we’re taking a look at effective field-goal percentage (eFG%) going back to the start of play-by-play tracking data in the 2002-03 season. We’re using eFG% instead of regular field-goal percentage because it accounts for the fact that 3-point shots are worth more than 2s (raw FG% is agnostic to this).
From there, we filtered out any player who has not attempted at least 100 field-goal attempts in the clutch since 2002-03 to avoid any small sample sizes mucking up our analysis. We define “clutch” as the last five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime when the game is within six points.
We also added a filter of at least 20 3-point attempts. This removes bigs who only take shots in the paint. Players like this tend to have a naturally high eFG% because they almost exclusively take high-value shots. However, those players aren’t as useful in clutch settings because they are dependent on someone else setting them up.
So they don’t really qualify for this analysis.
The last filter we added was to track only players with a 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio in the clutch. Part of being a great clutch player is being able to hold on to the ball and give your team a chance at getting a shot off (remember, you have no chance of scoring on possessions in which there are no shots taken).
In ‘Clutch’ Situations
For his career (regular season and playoffs), Haliburton has played in 184 “clutch” games, attempted 334 field goal attempts, and posted a 56.4 eFG% in those moments. For reference, the leaguewide average eFG% in all moments (not just clutch situations) is 54.3%.
In total, 123 players qualified based on our query, and Haliburton’s 56.4% is eighth among all those names. So there you have it, Haliburton isn’t the best clutch star of this century, right?
But wait, let’s take a look at the names ahead of him. In order from first to seventh, we have Brent Barry (69.0%), Michael Porter Jr. (63.5%), Royce O’Neale (59.7%), Alex Caruso (58.3%), P.J. Washington (58.1%), Austin Reaves (57.9%) and Derrick White (57.4%).
First off, shoutout to Barry for being such a statistical outlier in these situations. However, outside of Reaves, most of the players in the top seven are primarily deployed as off-ball scorers, and none has ever been named to an All-Star team.
Here are the top-five qualifying All-Stars in clutch eFG%:
clutch effective field goal percentage
Keep in mind Haliburton is only in his fifth season in the NBA, so his sample size is especially muddied by his exploratory first two seasons, before he rose to the levels of stardom that we are now familiar with.
Another thing worth mentioning is how turnover-averse Haliburton is in these situations. For his career, Haliburton has a pristine 3.86 assist-to-turnover ratio. That’s the best mark of any All-Star who qualified for our clutch list. In fact, the only other All-Stars to have a 3.00 or better assist-to-turnover ratio are Fred VanVleet (40.7% eFG), LaMelo Ball (45.1%), Nick Van Exel (38.7%), and Gary Payton (47.9%).
Some results that may surprise you:
Damian Lillard, who is viewed as a clutch king, ranks just 53rd of the 123 players (47.2%), and 11th among All-Star-caliber players. Meanwhile, Reggie Miller – Haliburton’s Pacer ancestor – is just 67th on this list (45.8%). However, this search only includes the final three seasons of Miller’s career. The least efficient All-Star-caliber player on this list was Van Exel (an All-Star in 1997-98).
Where is 2023-24 NBA Clutch Player of the Year Stephen Curry? He has a 52.8 eFG% in these situations and doesn’t qualify with a 1.46 assist-to-turnover ratio. What about Brunson? He does qualify for our list with a 2.47 assist-to-turnover ratio but is only 32nd at 50.3%.
In ‘Late and Close’ Situations
What if we look at “late and close” situations instead of clutch? We deem late and close to be the last two minutes of the final quarter when the game is within four points.
Since there are fewer late and close situations than clutch, we’re reducing our minimums to 75 field-goal attempts and 15 3-point attempts while keeping our 3.0+ assist-to-turnover ratio.
With an effective eFG% of 52.2 on 116 field-goal attempts, Haliburton is the fourth-most efficient player in these moments out of the 51 players who qualify.
late and close leaders
Man, there needs to be a library of books dedicated to the brilliance of Al Horford. Along with being one of the most versatile defenders of his generation, he’s also a stone-cold killer down the stretch.
Anyway, while Haliburton isn’t at the top of this group like he was with the other one, his name continues to be right near the top.
When you factor in this with the fact his “late and close” assist-to-turnover ratio is higher than that of Horford, you have a strong case that Haliburton may be the best clutch performer of this century.
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