Haliburton might be seizing reputation as NBA’s top closer like Pacers seized Game 1 from Knicks
GREENBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — Jalen Brunson has the award voted to the NBA’s best clutch player and landed the endorsement of Reggie Miller, one of basketball’s famed finishers. He had earned the reputation as the league’s top closer in this postseason.
Tyrese Haliburton might be seizing that the same way the Indiana Pacers seized Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals away from the New York Knicks.
With three memorable shots in nearly impossible-to-imagine comeback victories, Haliburton has become the heir apparent to Miller as the Pacers’ man of the (last) moment and has them three wins from the NBA Finals.
“He’s a special talent, he’s a special person and he continues to amaze me every time,” Pacers teammate Aaron Nesmith said.
Game 2 is Friday night, when Brunson and the Knicks will have to show they can come back from the type of devastating defeat that Milwaukee and Cleveland couldn’t in the previous two rounds.
New York led by 14 points with 2:45 remaining in regulation Wednesday. The Pacers rallied to tie it on Haliburton’s long 2-pointer that bounced high off the back off the rim and fell in as time expired, a shot he initially thought was a winning 3-pointer when he ran toward the crowd and emulated the choke signal Miller flashed to Spike Lee three decades earlier during an Indiana playoff victory.
Teams leading by at least 14 points in the final 2:45 of the fourth quarter had been 994-0 in the postseason since detailed play-by-play began being kept in 1997-98. But no lead seems safe against these Pacers, no matter what history says.
They trailed Milwaukee 118-111 with 40 seconds left in Game 5 in the first round, only to pull out a 119-118 series-ending victory on Haliburton’s layup with 1.4 seconds remaining. They fell behind Cleveland 119-112 with 48 seconds to play, but stunned the top seeds 120-119 in Game 2 of that series when Haliburton grabbed the rebound of his own missed free throw, dribbled back behind the arc and nailed a 3-pointer.
Teams trailing by seven or more in the final 50 seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime in the playoffs are 4-1,702 in the play-by-play era. Haliburton has led the Pacers to three of those wins in the last month.
“I think for me the biggest thing is I already have the confidence to take the shot in that moment, but I have the confidence from my group,” Haliburton said. “My group wants me to take those shots, my coaching staff wants me to take those shots, I think our organization wants me to take those shots. I think now we’re at the point where our fans want me to take that shot.”
That’s the way the Knicks and their fans feel about Brunson. He led the NBA during the regular season in baskets during clutch situations — defined as when the score differential is within five or fewer points, and the game is in either the final five minutes of the fourth quarter or in overtime — and has scored a league-high 96 points in the fourth quarter during the playoffs.
He had just made a basket during the final period with the Knicks trailing Boston in Game 2 of the second round when Miller, calling the game for TNT, immediately said the Celtics needed to be concerned because it was Brunson’s time of the game as the NBA’s best closer.
“I think Reggie was right on that,” Knicks forward Josh Hart said. “I think he’s the most clutch player in the NBA right now and we’re happy he’s on our team.”
Miller always wanted the ball late and his eight points in nine seconds to steal Game 1 of a 1995 series against the Knicks is one of the highlights of the teams’ rivalry. Haliburton is on a postseason roll now, but needs a few of them to sit next to his Hall of Fame predecessor in Pacers’ lore.
“I mean, Reggie’s career was legendary. Plus, Reggie’s just got a huge personality,” said Stan Van Gundy, Miller’s fellow TNT analyst for the series.
“You love him if he’s on your side when he was playing and you love to hate him if he’s on the other side, and he embraced the back-and-forth with the crowd and everything else. So I don’t know if Haliburton’s got all that. He tried last night, but he did it on a tie game, so I don’t know if that’s the time to do it. But look, I think Indiana fans think he’s the guy. It’s whether the nationwide fans start to look at him that way.”
Nesmith was under the basket as Haliburton’s shot went through. The forward had sparked the comeback by going 6 for 6 from 3-point range and scoring 20 of his 30 points in the final 4:46 of regulation. Might he have wanted the final shot that went to Haliburton?
“Little bit. Little bit,” he said. “Be lying if I said I wasn’t, but big-time players make big-time plays and that’s what he continues to do on a daily basis.”
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