The worst-case scenario has come true.
Indiana Pacers superstar point guard Tyrese Haliburton suffered a torn right Achilles tendon after going to the floor in pain during the first quarter of Sunday night’s Game 7 and not returning, the team confirmed Monday.
The Achilles tear was first reported by ESPN’s Shams Charania.
Haliburton, who had been playing through a calf injury in the same leg, went down with 4:55 remaining in the first quarter, falling to the court without contact after attempting to drive to the basket.
He had been off to a hot start, with nine points off a trio of makes from three.
The Pacers hung tough initially, taking a 48-47 lead into the half, but the Thunder proved too talented to overcome in the second half, pulling away in a 103-91 victory. Without their primary playmaker and most clutch scorer, the Pacers simply couldn’t generate enough clean looks on offense to best OKC’s stifling defense.
Haliburton had been having a postseason for the ages, with four go-ahead or game-tying makes in the final five seconds of regulation or overtime. He was the face of the underdog Pacers and their shocking run to the NBA Finals. When he wasn’t coming up huge in the clutch, he was averaging a cool 8.6 assists per game in the playoffs, a number that would have been even higher had he played all of Game 7.
And his loss undoubtedly impacted his teammates.
“You don’t want to see nobody get hurt, but—I don’t know—we needed Ty out there,” Pacers forward Obi Toppin told reporters after the game. “For him to go down, (in) a game like that, that s–t sucked the soul out of us. I ain’t gonna say out of everybody, but I don’t feel like I played good because I was thinking about it the whole day and I felt like it was my fault.”
The double kicker for the Pacers is that Haliburton’s injury not only came at the worst possible time this season, but probably will prevent him from playing at all in the 2025-26 campaign. It is not easy to reach the NBA Finals with your best player available—it is virtually impossible to do so without him.
With Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics and Damian Lillard of the Milwaukee Bucks also dealing with torn Achilles injuries and likely to miss all of next season, the Eastern Conference suddenly feels wide open.