“A Beautiful Mind” was about mathematician John Nash, but it might also be appropriately applied to Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton.
Haliburton and the Pacers pulled a rabbit out of their hats to stun the Los Angeles Lakers on the Lakers’ home floor on Monday night. Despite trailing by double digits for much of the second half (including by 17 with less than ten minutes left in the fourth quarter), the Pacers came storming back and won 116-115 on an Andrew Nembhard buzzer-beating three.
ANDREW NEMBHARD FOR THE WIN 😱 pic.twitter.com/kizhpwBDPP
— NBA TV (@NBATV) November 29, 2022
The underrated hero of that sequence was the 22-year-old Haliburton, who coralled the offensive rebound off a Myles Turner miss, took his time, made the proper read, and hit Nembhard on the left wing right in the nick of time.
After the game, Haliburton gave an in-depth explanation what was going through his mind on that chaotic final play. Here is the awesome video.
Tyrese Haliburton takes us inside the mind of the @nba’s assists leader, sharing his thought process during the final play of last night's game when he found Andrew Nembhard for the game-winning three. pic.twitter.com/u6D1McSmqD
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) November 29, 2022
“I don’t know how much time was up,” said Haliburton, who collected the rebound with about five seconds left. “I kinda glanced up. At first, I was gonna rise up and shoot it at five seconds. [But] I took one more dribble, and I think I had four seconds, a lot of time, so I took two more dribbles.
“Buddy [Hield], he was in the corner,” Haliburton continued. “Benn[edict Mathurin] was on the block and AD [Anthony Davis] was kinda splitting the two. Yeah, I wanted to throw it to Buddy. But I knew if I threw it to Buddy, that was going to be a hard contest from AD, tough shot. So I reverse pivoted with my left foot, and when I went to kick it, I saw LeBron [James], like. in the paint. And then it was kinda read if Bron took two steps I’m throwing it over the top to Benn. But he was late, so I just tried it to Drew for the game.”
That was highly impressive for Haliburton to keep his cool and go through all those progressions in his head in less than five seconds (especially in a scramble situation in the clutch off an unexpected rebound). In real time, it felt like Haliburton may have held onto the ball for a beat too long. But he zipped the bullet pass to Nembhard and was right on the money, hitting Nembhard in his shooting pocket for the perfect quick-fire three. Onions.
The read from Haliburton, who is averaging 19.9 points and 11.3 assists per game this season, brought the Pacers to 12-8 overall. The Lakers fell to 7-12 on the year in what was a humilating game for them for several reasons.
