BOSTON — Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton left Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals with a left leg injury and was unable to return to the action.
Haliburton left the game with 3:44 to go in the third quarter and never came back. The Pacers announced early in the fourth quarter that the All-NBA guard had left leg soreness and wouldn’t return to the action. He had 10 points and eight assists at the time.
Later, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN shared that Haliburton departed the game with left hamstring soreness. Head coach Rick Carlisle confirmed that injury after the game, stating that Haliburton had a hamstring issue.
“It’s sore,” Carlisle said of Haliburton’s left hamstring. “We’ll know more tomorrow and then probably even more Saturday.”
John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal shared that he saw Haliburton limping as he walked out of the arena to the Pacers team bus. According to Carlisle, Haliburton will get tests tomorrow and the team will know more about his status going forward. The next game in the series is on Saturday.
“Losing Ty for the game is obviously a big blow,” Carlisle said. “He was getting worked on the entire halftime… he was giving all the effort that he could. I haven’t talked to him about it directly, so I can’t read minds. But it wasn’t going well, so the trainers determined that he needed to go to the back and get worked on.”
Haliburton missed 13 games during the regular season, and 10 of them came after he sustained a Grade 1 left hamstring strain in January. The Pacers are familiar with playing games without Haliburton, and they even worked him in on a limited basis afterwards. The team should be prepared strategy wise if they are missing, or have a limited version of, the star guard going forward though they are a much worse team without the All-Star guard.
In Game 2, a 16-point Pacers loss to the Boston Celtics, Indiana outscored Boston by one in Haliburton’s minutes. He is tremendously impactful even when he’s not scoring at a high level. Their chances of winning the series would approach zero if he is out going forward, though their depth is impressive.
“I think we just need to continue to play with pace and move the ball and get to other actions,” Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard said of what the team needs to do if they are missing Haliburton going forward. He believes the team needs to play randomly.
The Pacers will release an injury report on Friday afternoon ahead of Game 3. That outing is in less than 48 hours.