OKLAHOMA CITY – As a deciding NBA Finals Game 7 continued without his injured son, John Haliburton rushed to the Indiana Pacers’ locker room.
Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton opened the game hot, nailing three 3-pointers before suffering a game-ending and career-challenging right Achilles injury with 4:55 left in the first quarter. Without Haliburton, the Pacers fell to the Oklahoma City Thunder, who claimed their first NBA title since moving to Oklahoma in 2008 with a 103-91 victory.
Once the “heartbroken” father walked into the Pacers’ locker room and saw his son on crutches and in tears, he continued crying, too.
“There was nothing to be said,” an emotional John Haliburton told Andscape in a phone interview. “We already knew there was nothing to be said. My man, you don’t need to talk about that. My heart was broken. It was just like stupid unbelievable. We came so far just to fall down like this.
“But like I said, nothing happened that God didn’t allow. I don’t care what you say. I don’t care how you try to do it. Nothing happened unless God allows it.”
While the Pacers may say otherwise, it was stunning that the Eastern Conference’s fourth seed advanced to its first NBA Finals since 2000. But here the Pacers were in this showstopping NBA Finals Game 7, keeping their season alive by winning Game 6 in a rout in Indianapolis. This was also with Tyrese Haliburton well aware of the injury risk, playing with a scary calf injury that has had its share of victims these playoffs.
Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum and Milwaukee Bucks guard Damian Lillard suffered season-ending Achilles tears this postseason. Former Golden State Warriors star Kevin Durant suffered a season-ending Achilles tear during Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals.
Despite the injury history related to calf strains, Haliburton accepted the risk with the Pacers one win from their first NBA championship (the Pacers won three ABA championships before joining the NBA in 1976). If it were the regular season, it’s unlikely Haliburton would have played.
“I’m pretty much in the same standpoint I was before Game 6,” Haliburton said on June 21, a day before Game 7. “A little stiff, a little sore, rather. Good thing I only had to play like 23 minutes. I’ve been able to get even more treatment and do more things. Just trying to take care of it the best I can. But I’ll be ready to go for Game 7.”
Watching from the stands, John Haliburton said he knew his son’s Achilles was torn when he fell to the floor.
“It’s always weak, but the calf can’t tell you that because apparently you get a shot,” John Haliburton said. “And then all of a sudden if you move wrong, it can make it worse. And it did. The minute when he went down I knew that he was done. I knew it. I knew it was the Achilles. If you listen to [the replay], you can almost hear the pop.
“I’m not stupid. I understand that when you numb something that means you could do things that you think you can do. The pain is already there. The trouble is already there. It’s just the idea that you feel like you can do things over it. When it’s already there, you can’t feel it warning you and then all of a sudden when it happens, it happens.”
AP Photo/Nate Billings
In Game 7, the Pacers were ahead 18-16 after nine points from Haliburton and the Thunder had reason to be nervous even in Oklahoma City. But after a dunk by Thunder All-Star forward Jalen Williams, Haliburton collapsed to the floor on a drive. He screamed and pounded the floor in agony and anger. Thunder star guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander immediately checked on Haliburton while all his teammates eventually came to check on him.
“I just asked him if he was all right,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, the 2025 NBA Finals Most Valuable Player. “Seemed like he was in pain. You just hate to see it in sports in general. But in this moment, my heart dropped for him. I couldn’t imagine playing the biggest game of my life and something like that happening. It’s not fair. But competition isn’t fair sometimes.
“I just felt so bad for him. Just asked if he was OK. Obviously, he wasn’t. Prayers go out to him, for sure.”
The Pacers players knew immediately that Haliburton’s title fight was over and surrounded him with a protective circle. The two-time NBA All-Star limped to the locker room with the aid of an assistant coach and teammate James Johnson.
“I didn’t know what was going on and what happened. I thought it was still his calf,” Johnson said.
Said Pacers All-Star forward Pascal Siakam: “Obviously, it hurts because we couldn’t get it done, and I wanted it so bad for him just because I know that he gave us everything he had. It just hurts that he couldn’t see it through with us.”
The Pacers returned to action with a vengeance without Haliburton to take a 48-47 halftime lead. Indiana received motivational words from Haliburton at halftime, but the champions-to-be were too much to handle in the second half. The Thunder outscored Indiana 34-20 in the third quarter and took a 13-point lead into the fourth. Pacers fans thirsty for an NBA championship will always wonder, “What if?”
Pacers forward Obi Toppin said he struggled in Game 7 after not mentally recovering from Haliburton’s injury, but he isn’t left wondering, “What if?”
“We needed Ty out there,” Toppin, who missed all four shots, said. “And he’s been good for us all year. And for him to go down getting an injury like that, it sucked the soul out of us. I’m not going to say everybody. I don’t feel like I played good because I was thinking about it the whole game. …
“It’s not a ‘What if?’ You got to learn from it. It’s our first time here in a long time. We got to learn from it. And coming into next [season], we will be back here.”
Once the buzzer sounded, Pacers players were emotional, with several shedding tears entering their locker room. Former Pacers great Reggie Miller gave comforting hugs to Pacers players. Pacers owner Herb Simon’s wife, Bui, said the players had much to be proud of as they left the arena.
Outside the Pacers’ locker room, Haliburton was on crutches shaking the hands of his teammates, coaches and other team personnel.
“It was an unbelievable effort. The guys should be proud. They were great,” Miller told Andscape.
No question Haliburton has enjoyed success as a two-time NBA All-Star and a 2024 Paris Olympic gold medalist. But there has been legitimate frustration along the way.
While it was a blessing in disguise for the Pacers, the Oshkosh, Wisconsin, native was initially disappointed when he was traded by the Sacramento Kings to the Pacers on Feb. 9, 2022. Haliburton and USA Basketball did not medal in the 2023 FIBA World Cup after losing to Gilgeous-Alexander and Canada in the bronze game.
Haliburton gained notoriety after leading the Pacers to the 2023 NBA Cup championship game before being routed by LeBron James and the Lakers. The Pacers advanced to the 2024 Eastern Conference finals but were swept by the eventual champion Celtics after Haliburton missed two games and parts of another in the series with a hamstring injury.
While Tatum got the headlines for his lack of playing time in the Olympics, no one played less for USA than Haliburton with 26 minutes over three games, to his father’s chagrin.
Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton drives to the basket against the Oklahoma City Thunder on June 22 at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City.
Morgan Givens/NBAE via Getty Images
To start the 2024-25 season, Haliburton was stymied by injuries and wasn’t selected to the 2025 NBA All-Star Game. His father was suspended for playoff games after taunting Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo on the floor in Indianapolis after the Pacers eliminated Milwaukee in the first round.
But Haliburton and the Pacers upset the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference second round 4-1, then had miraculous performances against the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference finals to win the series 4-2 and secure a long-awaited return to the NBA Finals.
Haliburton hit a stunning game-winning shot with 0.3 of a second left for the Pacers in Game 1 of the Finals to set the tone for a memorable series. He fought through pain to help the Pacers and vowed to play in Game 7, but with Haliburton and the Pacers in position to make history, his body failed him at the worst time.
“Nothing comes easy. You work hard and you go out and you take your work ethic and you put it on the floor,” John Haliburton said. “You put it all around you, and you go out and you use it and you let the results speak for itself. Nothing happens unless God says so. You can’t do anything about that. You have to take it, praise God and keep moving. …
“Whether it is bad or good, whether it is heartbreaking or not, nothing happened unless God allows it. So, you have to look at it like that. You can’t look at it no other way. You might feel like on the other end that it sucks. It’s just, wow. But nothing happened unless God allowed it to.”
Said Siakam: “I’m proud of that kid. He went through so much during the year. A lot of criticism. It’s a lot for a young kid to go through. He had a lot of stress, and he just kept fighting. He kept fighting every single day. He kept just working.”
The Pacers have retired the jersey numbers of four players: Miller (No. 31), George McGinnis (30), Mel Daniels (34), and Roger Brown (35). After the fight that Haliburton showed in the Finals, it’s probably a safe bet that his No. 0 jersey will be retired by the Pacers one day, too, many years from now.
No one will forget him suffering such a devastating injury in the name of bringing a title to basketball-crazed Indiana. The good news is Haliburton is only 25, but next season is in jeopardy.
Haliburton won over NBA fans and followers all over the world for his fight, toughness and ability to lay his body on the line for the Pacers. The way his father sees it, his son proved himself long ago before the Finals were a reality.
“Really, to be honest with you, [he] already showed the world everything,” John Haliburton said. “He was already there. That’s the media talking, making a decision about what he is and what he can do or what he can’t do.
So, we all thought when he started off [Game 7] … Listen, this game would’ve been totally different had he been on the floor. We all know that. Everybody knows that. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it.”
