Tyrese Haliburton entered the NBA in 2020 as a playmaking savant, boasting the court sense, processing speed and creative flair reserved for the game's very best passers. He was thrust into a primary offensive role after being traded from the Sacramento Kings to the Indiana Pacers midway through his second season, quickly cementing himself as one of the best offensive engines in the league.
Haliburton hasn't quite lived up to the incredibly lofty standards he set over the first couple months of 2023-24 since returning from a hamstring injury in late January. Rushed back onto the floor to hit the 65-game threshold needed to be eligible for All-NBA honors and a resulting super-max contract extension, it's hopefully only a matter of time until he's fully healthy again, pushing the likes of Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic for the title as the best offensive player in basketball.
The 24-year-old will still be plenty effective until then, especially if he's able to better balance his passing and scoring responsibilities from the opening tip to the final buzzer. On the most recent episode of Podcast P With Paul George presented by Wave Sports+Entertainment, Haliburton recalled how Philadelphia 76ers counterpart Tyrese Maxey alerted him last season to his disparate aggressiveness seeking his own offense from half to half.
“During the flow of the game, right, I don't necessarily think about that,” Haliburton told George of setting his teammates up and getting his own shots. “I'm just thinking like how do I make the right basketball play right now? This is what it's been all year for me. Go into halftime, 2-for-6, 10 assists and we're down five. And then they come up to me and they show me the stat sheet, and they're like, ‘Six shots? This isn't enough.' I go in the third quarter, I shoot, shoot, shoot, and then like it balances out.
“You know, cause I'm like, ‘I gotta be more aggressive.' I don't know for sure, but I feel like if you look at my numbers, the third and the fourth would be where I get the majority of my points,” he continued. “I've been trying to like find a way to adjust that mentality, because I remember Tyrese Maxey said it to me last season. Like I went into halftime with like 10 assists, probably like five points. We're coming out of halftime and I'm wiping off my shoes, and Tyrese comes and guards me full-court and he's like, ‘Alright, time to play defense now. Like, you're actually gonna score.' And I'm like, ‘People actually think that about me?'
“I didn't know that I did that. He was the first person to point it out to me,” Haliburton said of Maxey. “It's not on purpose, it's just the flow of the game. I think every game is a battle of those balances. I talk to Sue Bird about it all the time, because she's somebody who had to do it, too. There's not many people who have had to do both, and like have figured out how to do both at a high level. So I'm just trying to figure out the right way between the two.”
"We're coming out of halftime, and Tyrese Maxey was like, 'Time to play defense now.' I was like, 'People actually think that about me?'"
Tyrese Haliburton on balancing playmaking and scoring 😂
(via @PodcastPShow)pic.twitter.com/fb0dBzI6CT
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) March 20, 2024
Tyrese Haliburton's revealing first and second-half splits
Like Haliburton suggests, Maxey was right about his tendency to set up teammates before embracing his role as Indiana's top scorer. He's taking 7.3 shots and handing out six assists in first halves this season, compared to 8.3 shots and 5.3 assists during second halves, per NBA.com/stats. Haliburton is averaging more free throw and three-point attempts after intermission, too, no surprise considering his usage percentage rises from 23.4% to 25.3% after intermission.
Elite lead playmakers like Haliburton have long made a habit of letting the game come to them. Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry, for instance, has at times been criticized over the last couple years for not taking matters into his own hands as a scorer until the second half. The eye sometimes says all you need to know about LeBron James, especially into his late 30s, taking a more passive offensive approach early before coming alive late.
The good news for the Pacers is not only that Haliburton is talented and smart enough to balance out that game within the game as necessary, but that they're extra dangerous offensively when he's more aggressive.
Indiana's first-half offensive rating with Haliburton on the floor this season is 120.0, over three points per 100 possessions lower than their gaudy second-half offensive rating. He's more efficient as a scorer and passer, too, Haliburton's 63.4 true shooting percentage and wild 6.3 assist-to-turnover ratio after halftime easily outpacing his numbers in those categories from the first two quarters.
A more decisive Haliburton has paid dividends for the Pacers all season. As preternatural he is as a passer, perhaps Indiana's trajectory toward meaningful contention involves Haliburton diving deeper into his exploits as a scorer, using his shot to create efficient offense for himself and then his teammates rather than the other way around for a full 48 minutes.
Of course, Rick Carlisle's team will only reap the utmost benefits of that shift when Haliburton is close to 100% healthy. Let's hope he reaches that status before the regular season comes to a close, or at least heading into 2024-25 as the Pacers look to level up as top-tier Eastern Conference contenders.
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