Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – Tyrese Haliburton vowed to improve his first-half scoring struggles on Sunday after the Indiana Pacers stumbled to a series-leveling defeat to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals. Haliburton has repeatedly rescued the Pacers throughout this year’s playoff campaign with a series of late clutch baskets, including a last-second winner in game one of the Finals on Thursday.
But in the first halves of both games one and two, Haliburton has struggled to make an impact. After scoring just six points in the first half of game one, Haliburton bagged a paltry three points in the first two quarters of Sunday’s 123-107 loss in Oklahoma City. “I think I’ve had two really poor first halves,” Haliburton admitted. “I just have to figure out how to be better earlier in games.”
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Haliburton eventually finished with 17 points on Sunday, but coughed up five turnovers in the face of a suffocating Thunder defensive effort. “Kudos to them,” Haliburton said. “They are a great defensive team but (I’ll) watch the film and see where I can get better.”
Despite the loss, Haliburton said the Pacers would take heart from managing to split the opening two games on the road as the series heads back to Indianapolis for game three on Wednesday. “It’s still a race, first to four,” Haliburton said. “We are going to our home court tied 1-1, and we love playing at home. So just see where we can get better, and yeah, take it a day at a time.”
Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle meanwhile brushed off an invitation to dwell on Haliburton’s struggles in the early part of games, stressing that the Pacers had collective responsibility for scoring. “There’s a lot more to the game than just scoring,” Carlisle said. “So everybody’s got to do more. It starts with the best players. So people shouldn’t just look at (Haliburton’s) points and assists and judge how he played, or judge how any of our guys played just on that. That’s just not — that’s not how our team is built. We are an ecosystem that has to function together, and stats — we’ve got to score enough points to win the game but who gets them and how they get them, not important.”
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