The Indiana Pacers are just over a week away from kicking off their 2025 season with an NBA Finals rematch against the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Pacers will be playing this season without star point guard Tyrese Haliburton, who tore his Achilles in Game 7 of the Finals in a game that Indiana may very well have won had he not gotten injured.
Recently, Haliburton took to X, formerly Twitter, with a special message after hearing Pacers legend Reggie Miller praise his playoff run from a season ago.
“I’m gonna work my ass off to get back there… This place is very special to me… We’re gonna fight like hell,” said Halburton.
“There will never ever be a question of a guy's heart, will, determination, his game, no one will ever second guess any decision that he ever makes again,” said Miller. “He risked it all. He risked it all for a franchise, for a state, for an organization.”
Can the Pacers still compete?
Although Haliburton seems to be attacking his rehab process relentlessly, he has already been ruled out for the entirety of the upcoming 2025-26 NBA season, which many suspect will put a hard ceiling on how good the Pacers can be this year.
However, lost in all the hoopla surrounding Haliburton's clutch moments during last year's playoff run was the fact that in many of those instances, he had been relatively quiet throughout the game, and the Pacers were still able to find ways to hang around against elite teams, proving they are far from just a one-man show.
Of course, Indiana also lost big man Myles Turner in an ugly free agency divorce following his Finals no-show, and they didn't exactly do a great job of replacing him.
Still, this is a Pacers team with a lot of depth and the NBA's best coach in Rick Carlisle, so it's possible that they could still make some noise.
Indiana will kick off its season on October 23 at home against the Thunder.
