How Tyrese Haliburton exploited his own mistake (Patreon)

Even when he commits a turnover, he still finds the advantage

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper 

After the Indiana Pacers defeated the New York Knicks by a score of 140-126 while shooting 60 percent from the field and making 23 3-pointers to tie the team record, the NBA shared the following stat about Tyrese Haliburton's mass accumulation of assists:

Tyrese Haliburton is the third player ever with back-to-back games of 20 points and 20 assists, joining John Stockton and Magic Johnson.  He has the most assists and least turnovers of the three in that two-game span:

Johnson: 40 assists, eight turnovers

Stockton: 41 assists, six turnovers

Haliburton: 43 assists, two turnovers

Just to put those already historic numbers into further perspective: Haliburton has as many assists over the last two games (43) as the Knicks (19) and Bulls (24) tallied in combination against Indiana. During that stretch, he has completed 187 passes, the most of any player in the league, while only committing two turnovers -- both of which were bad passes. And yet, even when he made a "bad pass," he still somehow managed to spin straw into gold, exploiting his own mistake.

Here's what happened. At times, momentum can be both friend and enemy to the Pacers. According to advanced-stats website Inpredictable, although the Blue & Gold rank first in points per possession scored following a forced turnover, they also rank 29th in points per possession allowed after committing a turnover. On the one hand, when Haliburton is leading the charge in the open floor, it can be a load for the on-ball defender to both absorb and direct the ball. In part, that's why he is so effective at rejecting screens and putting teams into emergency rotations. This, for example, in which he goes away from the pick in transition, circling out and scanning for potential domino effects as Myles Turner regroups to set a flare screen for Aaron Nesmith, is the definition of random offense, insomuch as randomness can actually be defined.

On the other hand, however, when the entire team is flanking out around his spontaneity at full throttle, that can also make it difficult for them to abruptly hit the brakes and get back in the event that they get loose with the ball. Prior to and through the In-Season Tournament, the Pacers ranked among the top-five teams in the league in both pace and limiting turnovers. Over the next nine games, in which they went 3-6, Indiana plummeted from second to 28th in turnover rate -- with Haliburton averaging 4.0 per game. To be fair, what the Pacers were doing, as far as playing at breakneck speed without coughing up the ball, is rare, at least when compared to recent history. Since 2019-20, the only team that has finished the regular season ranking among the top-five in both of those categories is the 2022-23 Oklahoma City Thunder. In that regard, that's why writing off the way in which Haliburton has racked up assists in bulk as merely a function of the team's pace misses the mark. For one, he leads the league in assists per 100 possessions and assist percentage. Additionally, not every point guard can muster playing at this pace for an entire game while still taking care of the ball -- let alone when facing increased defensive attention, which had somewhat contributed to the uptick in his percentage of live-ball turnovers.

In fact, the aforementioned sequence of note against the Knicks occurred with two defenders committing to him on the ball. When Haliburton dribbled off the pick, Isaiah Hartenstein stepped toward him, funneling the ball to Myles Turner, with Donte DiVincenzo deflecting the short-roll pass.

After briefly mourning the loss of the possession, Haliburton left the sprinting to Andrew Nembhard, as he instead just raised his arms, attempting to impact his Team USA teammate, Jalen Brunson, from mimicking what he, himself, had so often done for Team USA, advancing the ball over the top of the defense. Nevertheless, even as his mistake led to points for the Knicks, Indiana's star guard was already plotting how to (metaphorically) even the score. Because there was no reason for Brunson to chase his hit-ahead pass to DiVincenzo, New York's guard stayed at the other end of the floor with Haliburton, who he then matched up with as his defensive assignment. In effect, his reward for advancing the ball was guarding the other team's best player. This didn't go unnoticed by Carlisle, nor Haliburton.

Immediately, although he doesn't call plays as often, Carlisle could be seen signaling for "c" with Nembhard as the primary ball-handler.

According to the script of that action, the player in the ball-side corner sets a touch screen for the ball-handler, who then swings the ball to the trailing big to flow into a hand-off with a screen in the middle for the player in the opposite corner to get downhill. Put simply, Haliburton would screen for Nembhard and Mathurin would screen Hield into a hand-off from Turner. But, that's not what happened. With Haliburton vacating his spot to exchange corners, Nembhard starts pointing for Mathurin to follow suit, swapping sides of the floor to reposition Julius Randle to the ball-side corner. Meanwhile, Haliburton shifts Hield up to the wing as the pindown screener.

Now, with the positioning and spacing fully optimized, all systems are go. Brunson, who doesn't generally take on top assignments at the point of attack, has to trail Haliburton into the hand-off at speed. This time, when Hartenstein commits to the ball, Turner slips diagonally out of the pick, creating a lose-lose situation for Josh Hart as the single-side tagger with Hield on standby.

In theory, all it takes from Haliburton is a head fake to freeze the defense enough for him to spoon feed Turner at the rim. In reality, he and the Pacers rearranged the floor in anticipation of the silver platter that would be waiting for him. That's what Haliburton does, and quite frankly, assists aren't an accurate measure of it or playmaking in general. 

Like Haliburton said following the game, "assists don’t happen without guys making shots," and right now, the Pacers are making a lot of shots. As in, franchise record-tying levels of shots, converting on 23 of his 29 potential assists versus New York. Meanwhile, the Knicks already didn't have Mitchell Robinson as a back-stop. The trade that occurred earlier in the day meant that they were down by Immanuel Quickley, who was their best off-ball defender, as well as O.G. Anunoby, who will be their most versatile defender. Worse still, Quentin Grimes, who is their best point of attack defender, was also out due to illness. Overall, for those reasons and more, this wasn't a great defensive performance from the Knicks. The frustration from head coach Tom Thibodeau was both palpable and audible, as he could be heard barking out "veer" from the sidelines, when the on-ball defender didn't peel-back against Turner, despite the fact that the big man had shot 6-of-8 from deep on the night. Still, Haliburton took full advantage of finding the advantages.  

Throwing the ball to an open teammate, even in the form of a hook pass with the off-hand, might seem paint-by-number or like a run-of-the-mill product of the offense, and to a certain extent it is, but the reason why Turner is open, drawing a weak-side rotation away from Nesmith, who was also red hot, is because of the attention that Haliburton commands, not only with his range, but also the uncertainty that he accrues over the course of the game, whether in mastering the art of rejection, or glancing, here, there, and everywhere as he skims across the floor with his activity.

Regardless of the number of assists he has over the last two games, his impact as a passer can't be measured by that tally or sometimes even from the difficulty level of the pass that he completes or the passing window that his gravity creates. In some cases, it begins with his anticipation of what comes next, nixing what would've been a wide screen from Turner for Hield at the weak-side wing to instead motion for a down screen from Turner for Nesmith to involve Brunson while creating a delayed, and also confused, ball screen coverage.

Or, maybe, as he did with only his second turnover on 187 passes, he's ruminating on his mistake and learning from it -- all to his team's benefit.

The numbers of recording back-to-back 20-20 games say he's doing something special, but they don't fully reflect the special quality of his 20/20 vision.