With 48 seconds left on the clock Tuesday, the Cleveland Cavaliers led the Indiana Pacers 119-112, a hard-fought win in hand after entering the night significantly shorthanded.
With zero seconds left on the clock Tuesday, they were wondering what on earth just happened.
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The short answer is Tyrese Haliburton happened. The longer answer is the Pacers whipped out their second epic comeback of the playoffs, and the result is an 0-2 hole for the Eastern Conference’s top team as their series heads to Indiana. The Pacers’ comeback required something like five or six things to perfectly right, in a way you just don’t see with any regularity in a basketball game.
The result are some stunning numbers for the Pacers, who have further shaken up a conference semifinals round that was already looking plenty chaotic. Here are the ones you most need to know.
3-1,640
Per ESPN’s research team, NBA teams are 3-1,640 when trailing by at least seven points in the final minute of the fourth quarter or overtime since the 1997-98 season. That works out to a winning percentage of 0.18%.
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But wait, there’s more.
2
The Pacers have two of those three wins. Not the Pacers franchise, this specific Pacers team.
The other comeback was Indiana’s 119-118 win in Game 5 of the first round against the Milwaukee Bucks. That game also ended in a game-winner from Haliburton.
It is indeed always Haliburton.
15
Does missing a free throw then getting your own rebound and making a game-winning 3-pointer all in the span of 15 seconds sound like a difficult thing to do? That’s what Haliburton did, unlike every other player of the last 20 years, per OptaStats.
48
Until Haliburton’s ball hit net, the hero of the night was going to be Donovan Mitchell.
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With his team missing key contributors Evan Mobley, Darius Garland and De’Andre Hunter, the Cavaliers star was asked to do more than ever and handled the burden impressively, dropping 48 points on 15-of-30 shooting with nine assists, five rebounds, four steals and five turnovers in 36 minutes, though he had a rough time in the final stretch.
It bears repeating: The best team in the Eastern Conference and possibly the NBA got 48 points from its star and lost after leading by seven in the final minute. It’s entirely possibly they still come back from this, but that is a body blow if we’ve ever seen one.
4
If this year’s playoffs have felt absurd, it’s not just you.
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We are barely into the second round and there have already been four 20-point comeback wins this postseason, which is the most in NBA history.
Go ahead. Call Tyrese Haliburton overrated. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)
(Jason Miller via Getty Images)
0.076%
So, those two Pacers comebacks? In the first one, the Bucks had a win probability as high as 96.2% in the final minute of overtime. On Tuesday, the Cavaliers’ win probability was as high as 98%.
That works out to a 0.076% chance of the Pacers winning both games, which is roughly equivalent to a 1-in-1,316 shot. Those are longer odds than the Washington Wizards had to win the title entering this season, via BetMGM.
10-of-11
Haliburton making big shots is nothing new. He is reportedly 10-of-11 on shots to tie or take the lead in the last two minutes this season.
14.4%
There are more than a few actual NBA players who might be changing their opinions about Haliburton right now.
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14.4% doesn’t sound like a lot, but it was enough to make Haliburton the most common answer to a poll of 158 NBA players asking who was the league’s most overrated player. Haliburton was very much aware of the disrespect, posting “Overrate THAT” after the Bucks shot and offering the same comment Tuesday night.
We’ll see if the poll has a different result next year.
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