The Indiana Pacers have stunned the No. 1 seed Cleveland Cavaliers, once again at home, and take a 2-0 lead in the series. Tyrese Haliburton dropped a game-winning three-point shot to take the lead with 1.1 seconds left on the clock. The Pacers won the game 120-119 after rallying back from a 20-point deficit in the third quarter.
The Cavaliers were severely shorthanded as Evan Mobley, Darius Garland, and De’Andre Hunter were all unavailable in this game due to injury. Irrespective of that, the Cavaliers managed to build a 20-point lead midway through the third quarter. In the first 29:09 of the game, the Pacers had 61 points and were down 20 points. In the last 18:51, the Pacers had 59 points and outscored the Cavaliers by 21 points.
Fans took to social media and expressed their disbelief at what Tyrese Haliburton pulled off.
“WHAT THE HELLYBURTON”, wrote a fan on X.
“This is arguably the worst choke job I’ve seen in so long”, said another fan.
“People really thought the CAVS winning jack without LeBron”, said a fan who felt only LeBron James could save the Cavaliers and win anything with them. To be fair, Donovan Mitchell has been putting up Michael Jordan-esque performances, but it hasn’t been enough so far for the Cavaliers to go all the way.
“Hardly anyone understands the concept of defense anymore”, said a frustrated fan who criticized how the Cavaliers guarded Tyrese Haliburton in the final seconds of the game.
“Instant karma for Cav fans calling him overrated lol”, said a fan while addressing the multiple occasions where the Cavs fans chanted ‘overrated!’ for Haliburton during the game.
“If Pacers win this series, it’s easy path for the Celtics again”, said a fan who still seemed to be reeling from the fact that the Celtics faced the Pacers last season in the Eastern Conference Finals (ECF) and easily swept them 4-0. The Celtics have already lost their first game in the Knicks series. But the fan indicates that if they were to win that series, the most competitive matchup for them would be against the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, the Cavaliers.
The Cavaliers tied their season series with the Celtics (2-2), whereas the Pacers led their series (2-1). So the Pacers have shown that they do have the capability to beat the Celtics this season. Therefore, unless in the unlikely event that the Cavaliers bounce back from this rough start to win the series, we predict that the Pacers-Celtics series would not be as one-sided as it was last season if they were to both proceed to the ECF.
Are the Pacers genuine title contenders this season? Seeing the run Tyrese Haliburton has been on to elevate his team, it won’t be a far-fetched conclusion to say yes, they are genuine title contenders this season.
