Oklahoma City (AFP) – Indiana Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said his team’s “hearts dropped” after seeing Tyrese Haliburton’s early injury exit in their NBA Finals defeat to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday. Pacers talisman Haliburton — the pivotal figure in Indiana’s run through the playoffs — collapsed to the hardwood in agony early in the first quarter and did not return.
The 25-year-old, who had been nursing a right calf strain since last week, hobbled off the court supported by Pacers backroom staff and was later seen on crutches following Indiana’s 103-91 defeat. “What happened with Tyrese, all of our hearts dropped,” Carlisle said in a post-game press conference. “But he will be back. I don’t have any medical information about what may or may not have happened, but he’ll be back in time, and I believe he’ll make a full recovery.”
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Haliburton’s father earlier told ESPN his son had suffered an Achilles injury. The Pacers said Haliburton exited with a “lower right leg injury.” Carlisle meanwhile saluted Haliburton’s role in an against-the-odds run to the brink of an NBA championship. “He authored one of the great individual playoff runs in the history of the NBA with dramatic play after dramatic play,” Carlisle said. “It was just something that no one’s ever seen and he did it as one of 17. You know, that’s the beautiful thing about him. As great a player as he is, it’s always a team thing. So, our hearts go out to him.”
Carlisle said Haliburton had helped gee up the squad in the locker room at half-time, when the Pacers had taken a slender one-point lead at the break. However, he admitted the game had swung decisively in Oklahoma City’s favor after they outscored the Pacers 34-20 in the third quarter. “We needed to come out of the locker room and be better in the first five minutes of the third quarter. We just weren’t,” Carlisle said. “I don’t have the whole sequence of events but they made some great plays. We got off to a slow start, and that quarter was the killer.”
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