Tyrese Haliburton definitely does not forget things so easily.
The Indiana Pacers star guard Haliburton continued his heater on Saturday night against the New York Knicks. Haliburton dropped 22 points and a gaudy 23 assists (his second straight 20-20 game) to lead Indiana to a comfortable 140-126 victory.
With the game already in the bag during the fourth quarter, Haliburton decided to pull a cold-blooded move on Knicks analyst Wally Szczerbiak, the ex-NBA sharpshooter. As he was heading towards the bench for a timeout, Haliburton stared down Szczerbiak on media row. Take a look.
Tyrese Haliburton cooking Wally Szczerbiak 🐟🍳🐠 #NBA pic.twitter.com/hFftJLImAS
— Edilson J. Silva 🇨🇦🏀🇦🇴 (@edilsonbuzz) December 31, 2023
Haliburton was also seen clapping in Szczerbiak’s direction and seemingly yelling, “Yeah, Wally! Yeah!”
https://twitter.com/perryoragentp_/status/1741284498019385729
You may recall that Szczerbiak threw major shade at Haliburton last season, seemingly out of the blue. Szczerbiak slammed Haliburton as a “wannabe fake All-Star” during an on-air segment. But Haliburton was able to troll Szczerbiak after he did indeed make the NBA All-Star team that year. On Saturday, he finally got a chance to see Szczerbiak face-to-face for the first time since (and made the most of it).
The beef does now seem to be over though — Szczerbiak said Saturday that he was “dead wrong” with his old comments about Haliburton. Meanwhile, Haliburton also said in his postgame interview that he was just having fun and that the feud with Szczerbiak was “over and done with.”
"I told him 'My apologies, that was not my finest hour' when I called his son a wannabe fake all-star. He's an absolute superstar…He said 'Don't worry about it. We've all had moments like that. We forgive you my man'"
— Postgame conversation between Wally Szczerbiak and John… pic.twitter.com/XQT1XMDiKn
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) December 31, 2023
Haliburton had some fun with Knicks' broadcaster Wally Szczerbiak after another 20-20 performance: "He had some stuff to say last year. It's all done and over with but it's the first time I've seen him since then, so, had to say something." #Pacers pic.twitter.com/4I4hVwYoiy
— FanDuel Sports Network Indiana (@FanDuelSN_IND) December 31, 2023
But Haliburton has to be feeling pretty good about himself right now as he is having an even better 2023-24 campaign, now averaging 24.6 points and a league-leading 12.8 assists a game (the most by an NBA player since John Stockton in the 1990s). On Saturday, Szczerbiak got a front-row seat as Haliburton put on a masterclass to carve up his team.
