Stop me if you’ve heard this before.
Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton made another game-winning shot in the playoffs.
Except this time, it was on the sport’s biggest stage with the sport’s brightest lights: the NBA Finals.
Haliburton and the Pacers stunned the Oklahoma City Thunder, stealing Game 1, 111-110.
The league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder were up by as many as 15 points in the fourth quarter.
Then the Pacers did what they have done all postseason long.
It is the fifth time they have come back from being down 15, which is the most such comebacks in a single postseason since the play-by-play era began in 1997.
Indiana is 5-3 when they go down by 15 or more this postseason.
However, the most stunning stat about their playoff heroics is this.
Teams in the NBA Finals that trailed by 7+ points with three minutes left in the game (since 1997) were 0-122.
After tonight?
1-122.
After the game, the ESPN cameras caught Haliburton and Pascal Siakam already looking ahead to Game 2.
“Hell yeah, we did our job,” Haliburton told Siakam.
“Let’s get greedy man. We got so much to work on.”
“We ain’t even play well,” Siakam responded.
It is unfathomable what Haliburton and this team have done in the last two months.
They do not die.
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They do not quit.
And Haliburton specifically has transcended into a whole different level.
Since 1997, only LeBron James has more go-ahead or game-tying shots in the postseason than the 25-year-old star.
James has eight, while Haliburton, and fellow Indiana star, Reggie Miller, are both tied for second with five.
Four of those Haliburton shots have come in the last two months.
It’s his world, and we’re all just living in it.
Including the Thunder, at least for one night.
