In the first half of the Indiana Pacers' rousing 133-131 win over the Boston Celtics on Monday night, they lost Tyrese Haliburton to what looked like a serious leg injury. The Pacers star point guard slipped and appeared to extend his leg, injuring his hamstring in the process. To put in perspective how serious Haliburton's injury looked, his teammates had to help him towards the locker room.

With the Pacers in the thick of the playoff race, the last thing they would want is a prolonged absence from the team's best player. Now, there are no definitive reports yet for Haliburton's status moving forward. But head coach Rick Carlisle is trying to remain optimistic before tests reveal the true severity of the injury the star point guard sustained.

“We hope that it’s not serious. We’ll know more tomorrow,” Carlisle told reporters, per iPacers.com on Twitter (X).

That is the ultimate hope for a Pacers team that's been around eight points better whenever Tyrese Haliburton is on the court, according to PBP Stats. Haliburton's elite court vision and elite ability to push the pace is what enables Indiana's jaw-dropping run-and-gun style that has allowed them to be the proud owner of one of the best offenses in league history.

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The Pacers also showed last season that they might be in danger of collapsing if Haliburton were to miss an extended period of time due to injury. Last season, the Pacers were 23-18 before Haliburton needed to miss time after suffering a knee injury. They then proceeded to win a grand total of one game in the 10 that the star point guard missed, effectively knocking them out of playoff contention after the team was unable to right the ship on time.

Whatever the case may be, this development is even more disheartening for Tyrese Haliburton, the star who's averaging 24.2 points and 12.7 rebounds (excluding his shortened outing vs. the Celtics) per night. Haliburton, according to the latest All-Star voting results, is in line for a start, so the hope now is that he'll be healthy enough, at the very least, to play in the All-Star game in front of the Indianapolis faithful.