The Miami Heat better get used to seeing the Indiana Pacers the next few days as the two face one another Thursday and Saturday night. Head coach Erik Spoelstra spoke to the media before the first matchup to talk about the opposing team, how dangerous they are, and about superstar point guard Tyrese Haliburton.

Spoelstra spent most of the Heat pre-game media availability gushing about Haliburton and how he elevates the Pacers. He said to ClutchPoints that even with the team missing players from last season, few have noticed because of how good they're playing, dubbing it “The Haliburton effect.”

“I mean they've been without a few of their main guys that really helped them last year. And I think that's the Halliburton effect. He just makes everybody around him more confident and they play aggressively,” Spoelstra said. “And if you know you're getting the ball early, and often, that just breeds a lot of confidence out of the whole group so they have a ton of weapons. It's not like guys are playing with big usages. They play pretty much no hold basketball and they move you around and you have to be sharp.”

Heat's Spoelstra on Haliburton's attitude on and off the court

Haliburton is putting up a ridiculous stat-line as he's averaging 25.9 points and leading the league with 11.9 assists per game. The star player was traded from the Sacramento Kings to the Pacers in February of 2022. Spoelstra talks about his traits on and especially off the court that propel Haliburton from being a good to great player.

“I think probably everybody really started noticing as soon as the trade happened, and then you realize that he [Haliburton] could become a face of a franchise and you could build around him. He's a winning player, winning personality, he has just has a way of galvanizing everybody, they love playing with him. It's hard not to like that,” Spoelstra said. “You have an opportunity to put up bigger numbers than you normally would just because of his vision and willingness. And then probably the most underrated part of this game is his ability to score. You're thinking about him setting the table so much that he's a great three point shooter.”

How the Heat matchup against the Pacers per Spoelstra

The Pacers are off to a 9-7 start which puts them at sixth in the Eastern Conference. Haliburton's play-making has resulted in the team having the best offensive rating in the entire association. Spoelstra said that it's impressive when a team can score over 130 points, let alone reaching the 150 mark which Indiana has done three times this season.

“You definitely take notice when they're putting up these kind of numbers. I mean they really get up and down, utilize the three point line. Halliburton just sets the table for the entire offense. We need to try to control the game to get it on our terms. That doesn't mean slowing the game down, but your offense does matter,” Spoelstra said. “You know the other night, I thought we did a really good job of getting to what we wanted to get to without turning the ball over. And that allows you to control the tempo and then defensively you have to be very sharp.”

Miami is trying to break their current three-game losing skid after the loss to the Milwaukee Bucks Tuesday as they try to defend home-court against the Pacers tonight and Saturday. They are currently 10-8 in the regular season which lands them seventh in the conference and funny enough, behind Indiana.