{"id":792920,"date":"2026-07-22T10:48:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T10:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/792920\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T10:48:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T10:48:24","slug":"tyrese-haliburtons-latest-message-just-defined-pacers-nba-championship-chase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/792920\/","title":{"rendered":"Tyrese Haliburton’s latest message just defined Pacers’ NBA Championship chase"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Indiana Pacers are going to be trying to get back in the title race next year after struggling this past season. Tyrese Haliburton ruptured his Achilles in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals, and without him, Indy was one of the worst teams in the league. Luckily for Pacers fans, Haliburton just said that he\u2019s healthy again, which puts them in a great position to make another deep run.<\/p>\n

Haliburton says that after recovering from his Achilles rupture and dealing with Shingles, he\u2019s in a great spot. “I feel great,” Haliburton said via Dustin Dopirak of the Indianapolis Star<\/a>. “Shingles is mostly beyond me now. I’ve lost the weight. I feel great. This is the best I’ve felt in a long time.”<\/p>\n

If Indy wants to make a run at a championship this year, it needs a fully healthy Haliburton. And it sounds like that\u2019s what it\u2019s getting.<\/p>\n

A healthy Tyrese Haliburton puts the Pacers in the title race<\/p>\n

Haliburton was the driving force of the Pacers\u2019 run to the 2025 NBA Finals. His playoff magic led them to three straight series wins and nearly a fourth, before everything fell apart.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s endured a long, endless recovery process. One that included dealing with Shingles and the weight gain that came along with it. But based on the sound of things, that\u2019s no longer an issue.<\/p>\n

Obviously, Haliburton will have to get back up to game speed<\/a>. He\u2019ll have to get used to playing in real NBA games again after missing an entire season of NBA action.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s okay. Indy wasn\u2019t a great regular-season team in 2025, but they still went to the Finals. The most important thing is that Haliburton is healthy, and it sounds like that\u2019s the case.<\/p>\n

Without Haliburton, the Pacers have no chance of making the Finals. If nothing else, this past year proved that. Without Haliburton, they went from a Finals team to one of the worst squads in the NBA.<\/p>\n

Haliburton being healthy puts them back in the mix in the Eastern Conference. Once the playoffs come around, all bets are off, and Haliburton is someone you definitely want on your team in a playoff game.<\/p>\n

His health completely defines the ceiling of what the Pacers could be next season. If he\u2019s in as good a spot as he says he is, then there\u2019s no reason Indy can\u2019t be a legit threat in the East.<\/p>\n

This is the exact sort of message the Pacers \u2013 and their fans \u2013 needed to hear before next season.<\/p>\n

\"\"Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Indiana Pacers are going to be trying to get back in the title race next year after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[7,113,126,3866,6,114],"class_list":["post-792920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indiana-pacers","tag-basketball","tag-indiana","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-indianapacers","tag-nba","tag-pacers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116963240136184962","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792920","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=792920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}