During the final week of an NBA regular season that\u2019s missed Tyrese Haliburton, the Indiana Pacers star provided an encouraging update about his return to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlayed 5 on 5 today for first time since June,\u201d the two-time All-Star point guard posted on X on Wednesday night<\/a>.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n June is when Haliburton, 26, tragically suffered an Achilles tear<\/a> that cut his epic 2025 postseason short during Game 7 of the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n Haliburton was playing through a calf strain at the time. He knew the risks that came with that endeavor, and, yet, he rolled the dice in order to try to help the Pacers win their first NBA championship.<\/p>\n But in the first quarter of a fateful Game 7 against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Haliburton stumbled while dribbling forward, hit the deck and then pounded the hardwood with his hand in obvious pain.<\/p>\n Then tied, the game wound up in the Thunder\u2019s hands, and Oklahoma City hoisted the Larry O’Brien Trophy while the Pacers wondered what could have been. Haliburton, after all, was a late-game assassin throughout last year\u2019s playoffs.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n A day after Haliburton\u2019s devastating injury, he shared a heartfelt message to fans on social media<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cNow that I\u2019ve gotten surgery, I wish I could count the number of times people will tell me I\u2019m going to \u201ccome back stronger.\u201d What a cliche lol, this s*** sucks. My foot feels like dead weight fam. But what\u2019s hurting most I think is my mind. Feel like I\u2019m rambling, but I know this is something I\u2019ll look back on when I\u2019m through this, as something I\u2019m proud I fought through. It feels good to let this s*** out without y\u2019all seeing the kid ugly cry.\u201d<\/p>\n In that message, he said he didn\u2019t regret his decision to keep playing after sustaining a calf strain in Game 5. The former Iowa State standout and Sacramento Kings first-round pick apologized to the city of Indianapolis, but he assured Pacers faithful that he\u2019d get back to being \u201cthe best version of Tyrese Haliburton.\u201d<\/p>\n In July, the Pacers confirmed that Haliburton wouldn\u2019t play during the 2025-26 season<\/a>. Team president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard noted that the franchise didn\u2019t want to jeopardize further injury for its floor general.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Elsewhere in the league, another star successfully worked his way back from an Achilles tear. That\u2019s Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum, although the six-time All-Star and one-time NBA champ went down with his injury in May during the final minutes of an Eastern Conference semifinals Game 4 loss to the New York Knicks<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tatum\u2019s first game back was on March 6<\/a>. In 15 games, he\u2019s averaged 21.6 points, 9.8 rebounds and 5.1 assists while shooting 41.9% from the field and 33.8% from deep.<\/p>\n During the 2025-26 campaign, Haliburton has tested the broadcasting waters as a player contributor on “NBA on Prime”<\/a> and dealt with shingles<\/a>, among other ups and downs that have come with an unusual season away from the court.<\/p>\n Indiana has struggled mightily in his absence. With three regular-season games remaining, the Pacers are 18-61. That\u2019s the second-worst record in the NBA.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n It\u2019s a lost season, but the next one will feature the return of Haliburton, who signaled his progress on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During the final week of an NBA regular season that\u2019s missed Tyrese Haliburton, the Indiana Pacers star provided…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[10861,7,75,113,126,3866,77,6,191,475,179,114,477,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-706317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indiana-pacers","8":"tag-achilles-tear","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-boston-celtics","11":"tag-indiana","12":"tag-indiana-pacers","13":"tag-indianapacers","14":"tag-jayson-tatum","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-new-york-knicks","17":"tag-oklahoma-city","18":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","19":"tag-pacers","20":"tag-sacramento-kings","21":"tag-tyrese-haliburton"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116372566450981691","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}