It is the JR Sportbrief Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. I need you to think O'Reilly Auto Parts for all of your car care needs.
Get guaranteed low prices and excellent customer service from the professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts. Last night it looked like we were in store for a blowout and the Pacers went out and did it again. They didn't have a lead until three tenths of a second left in the game.
They walk away with a victory, another big shot in the playoffs the postseason by Tyrese Halliburton. Joining us right now to talk about this team that will not die, that will not quit, that just keeps coming back and back and back is Zach Osterman, who covers all things Pacers, Indiana Sports for the Indy Star. Zach, how are you man? Hey Zach, we have Zach? I'm typing and I didn't want the click clack of the keys to jump in on and then of course I forgot I was muted, so I am very sorry about that. Thank you for having me. No problem, I didn't know if you got abducted by aliens or something Zach, I'm glad you're here. Well I'm staring out at the Oklahoma Comets baseball field so you never know if I'm, I mean we might ride out into space at some point, who knows?
In Oklahoma City that very well might be the case, man. When Halliburton hit that shot last night, what was your reaction? I think first, I had about a thousand words of writing. But the next one was, you have to keep doing this and you know what's funny to me is I think this is probably one of the more explainable. Since that A, of course we've seen the Pacers do this a few times in these playoffs. B, a lot of what happened not really came down to the real advantage of the Pacers was three point shooting. And the fact that the Pacers hit six in the fourth quarter, the Thunder hit none. And so that's what kind of brings the Pacers back. But there is just an element of this that you just, you start to sort of say as much as we can quantify, you know, this team's good at this or these statistical trends tells this about this team. There just does have to be something inherent in a group that just starts to believe that they're capable of this no matter what situation they find themselves in and that's invaluable in a playoff setting.
Zach Osterman is here with us from the Indy Star. When you think about all these big shots that Halliburton is out there knocking down, we found out earlier on in the playoffs as the season ended that he was voted in a small sample size the most overrated player in the entire league. For a dude who is as clutch as he is and knocking down these shots like this, why do you think some of his contemporaries across the league put him in that category? Yeah, I think there's, I think there are a few things with Halliburton and, you know, listen, there's a lot of different ways to judge a player's value in the modern NBA. I think, you know, he's not always the volume score he can be, but there are also nights when, I mean, last night's a decent example where you feel like he's not as involved in the game as, for example, Billy Gilgeous, he's got 38 points at the end of it, but then you look down at the stat line, he's got 10 rebounds, he's got 6 assists, of course he hits the game winner. And so there's a little bit of maybe, you know, kind of the fact that for a lead guard for sort of, you know, the alpha on a finals ending team, he doesn't fit that archetype of a player that's going to take a lot of shots, that's going to score a lot of points most nights. He'll do that when it's available to him, he'll do that when he's shooting well, when he's playing well. But he's also a player by the nature of the way the team's built around him who recognizes sometimes when it's appropriate to step back and be more of a facilitator, bring others into play more. I think it also helps too for him that he's got Andrew Nembhard with him who can, you know, I mean, we saw this last night, isn't necessarily going to be as ball dominant as Halliburton, but can run the offense and even, you know, maybe take games over in stretches. And then there's probably, you know, some element of the small market piece of it and I think that stuff's a little bit kind of outdated in the way that we think about sports in America.
But I think that will always probably push just a little bit. But what I say about Halliburton and, you know, I say this to somebody who covers a lot of college basketball, but obviously watches a lot of the NBA and a lot of the Pacers. When you have a player who a franchise makes a conscious decision to say, we're going to trade for you, we're going to give you the money and we're going to build the whole roster around what you need and your strengths and bring the best out of your game.
And this is what he delivers. I don't think you can call that player overrated anymore. Zach Austin is here with us covers the Pacers and for the Indy Star, when you think about this team having a sub 500 record as we moved into 2025 and they've been one of the best teams in 2025. Is it small market? Is that why they've kind of floated under the radar? There was so much attention paid to the Boston Celtics and the record of the Cavaliers and the New York Knicks. Why haven't the Pacers got that attention?
It just can't be the market, right? No, I think this I mean, I think this happens sometimes in large sample size sports, too. You know, this is a weird comparison, but I'm a Braves fan. I grew up in Atlanta and I remember when the Braves made their World Series run a few years ago, they spent a lot of the season fighting around 500 and it sort of felt like baseball forgot about them. And then nobody kind of realized that the last two months of the season, they were playing it like a 107 or a 108 win pace or whatever it was. So by the time they hit the playoffs, they weren't the team that couldn't get over 500. They were a team that was playing as well as anybody in baseball. And I think you see that sometimes in sports like baseball, basketball, hockey, where a team struggles early in the season.
Others kind of break out to the front. You mentioned the Cavs, obviously, in the Western Conference, you had the Thunder and you sort of forget about a team like the Pacers and you don't. I mean, you know, I think they're 34 and 14 in the regular season from from June, June, June 1st, January 1st to the end of the regular season. You sort of forget about them because they were when maybe the kind of the narratives of the season were being set early on, kind of struggling. And you don't realize until you get to the playoffs, actually, this is a team that's been playing just about as well as anybody in the NBA. And, you know, I think it happens more in sports like this where there's just game after game after game. And I think that's what's you know, I think that's what this team has has kind of written is maybe.
And again, I don't know if they needed that, that sort of external doubt to motivate them or whatever. And obviously they had some injuries to listen to some of it. They just had to get healthy. But, you know, I think this team kind of flew under the radar because others kind of grabbed the headlines and the narrative early in the season. Justifiably, the Cavaliers had a great year, obviously, for example, and nobody kind of realized just how well the Pacers were playing until they hit the playoffs. And they started, you know, started putting some of these teams away in the Bucks and then the Cavs and then the Knicks that you talk about. And I think that's that's where this has come from a little bit that maybe we just haven't appreciated how well this team has been playing because of that close start.
Well, Zach, it's certainly taken a lot of big shots by Halliburton, some deficits that they've overcome, including last night down 15 points in the fourth quarter. How do you think they're going to look moving forward? I'm still looking at the Thunder as the favorites here.
How do you think they're going to react? What are your thoughts on what the rest of the series will look like? Well, I think the first thing, obviously, for Indiana is they at least tilt the series back toward the advantage of getting the Thunder to Indianapolis. I guess the first thing you had to do was, you know, just get to a place where you go to Indianapolis feeling like you've got opportunity rather than feeling like you've got to win both those games because you lost both of them in Oklahoma City. You can't go back to OKC down three, one, whatever. I agree that the Thunder are probably still favorite. I think if you know, if I'm if I'm handicapping this series, the things that I'd be concerned about, if I'm a fan of the Thunder is I don't know how much could go much better for Oklahoma City than it did last night.
Right. The crowd was decremented. You know, the atmosphere was genuinely electric and there was deafening at times.
I mean, I was putting my AirPods in just to, like, give my give my eardrums a break a couple times a quarter. Obviously, you get 38 from Gilgis Alexander. You know, you you you turn the patient over 20 times in the first half and you still lose the game. I'm not saying Thunder are going to get swept or anything, but I do think the patients can take heart from the idea that that game could not have gone too much better for Oklahoma City than it did.
And Indiana still won. I think what you get from that is when we have this series, we said, what are the things the Thunder the clear favorite if the patients are going to turn that around? What are the things that have got to manifest in these games? One is the three point shooting we talked about.
Another is the patient's experience. And that starts obviously with the head coach and works itself all the way down this group. The core of it was in a fairly deep playoff run last year. Obviously, you've got guys on this roster that already have rings. Siakam, Thomas Bryant.
And I think you saw some of that manifest last night, too. Now, again, I would still stick with the Thunder as a narrow favorite. But I think if you are Indiana, while I don't think you would look at last night as Oklahoma City's best punch, you would probably say they can't throw many much better.
And we still won. So if we clean up the turnovers, if we get Halliburton going a little bit more offensively, if we can really capitalize on our home court advantage when we're back in Indiana, we're back in Indianapolis next week, then we can get control of this series in a way that creates a bit of an uphill climb for OKC. Now, the Thunder had to do this with the Nuggets. I know obviously that series is followed a little bit by injuries, too. But the Thunder do have form for losing Game 1, going to a seven game series, coming back and winning, et cetera. But I think if this Pacers team keeps playing the way that it's been playing, I think last night told us they are prepared to push Oklahoma City a lot further than maybe general consensus expected them to.
They signed me up. We run out of basketball. I want some good games, Zach. I'll tell you that much.
Last last question for you, Zach. Tyrese Halliburton has certainly raised his his awareness level across the country to a new level over the past month and a half. And he's doing WWE.
They got shirts of him and he has his new shoe and what have you. Is he the NBA's newest bad guy? Is he the newest villain? It seems like his own guys in the league don't like him. He's playing the bad guy role on WWE. Is he the next Reggie Miller?
Is he the next? I love to hate that guy. Maybe, you know, I think he I think he at least embraces, you know, kind of the idea that I mean, listen, if if you're going to if you're going to be the guy that becomes famous for, you know, sticking game winners in everybody's face, you're not going to be very well liked. It doesn't really matter, you know, what you do off the court or how you play or who you play for. You know, if you are consistently running around the league, leaving the endures, the enduring memory of being the guy that delivers the knockout punch against everybody else, you're going to become unpopular pretty fast. I think he I don't think he necessarily embraces the villain role, but I don't think he really gets my impression of Tyrese Albert and his he doesn't really apologize much for who he is.
And he doesn't mind telling you who he is. You know, I mean, like, for example, people have asked him about living in Indianapolis. And again, that that sort of small market thing, are you comfortable here? You know, some some guys want to be in bigger markets or on bigger teams. And he says, listen, I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. I went to Iowa State like Indianapolis is more than enough for me. This organization is good to me.
It's good to my family. This is you know, this is the place I'm incredibly comfortable. I think he should be. I mean, he was wearing, you know, pink pumas on the court last night. You know, I would have a buddy of mine texted me a picture of his shoes and said he took their souls wearing pink soles. And yeah, I mean, I would like that sort of wanted to steal that line.
But I think there's there's rules against that in journalism. But, you know, he doesn't apologize for who he is. And I think when you get guys like that and this is in any sport, when you get, you know, sort of leading stars that are willing and able to show that kind of, you know, intentional and and sort of individual confidence, but not at the expense of their team. You know, it's clear the way that the team rallies around them, it's clear the way that the organization is, you know, kind of really rallied around them. And frankly, the way he rallies around being the face of the Pacers, he's in Indiana Fever games all the time, you know, cheering on taken Clark. But he's embraced the idea of being a mainstay in Indianapolis beyond just what he's doing on the floor with the Pacers. You're not going to be well liked if you're a guy that is constantly putting it on teams elsewhere around the league. You know, he's not going to be popular in Cleveland no matter what he says or does, if he's making last second shots to complete 20 point comebacks in the playoffs.
But I don't think he's I don't think he's one of those people that needs to be a villain, so to speak, to succeed. I think he's just very comfortable with who he is. And I think you see that comfort really starting to manifest and express itself. Because you also, you know, it's easy sometimes to forget. And this is true, I think, of Gilders Alexander, too. How young these guys still are, you know, and that we're we're so used to, you know, stars being around. Right, exactly.
Started being around forever. And you sort of forget, like, well, those guys needed a little while, too. You know, I mean, we we've all kind of forgotten LeBron needed some years. He was really good from his rookie year, but he needed some years to really become the dominant two way, all over the floor kind of player that he was. Everybody does.
Nobody walks in fully formed. And I think what you're starting to see is Tyrese Halliburton becoming more fully formed. And if you're Indiana, the results are obviously very encouraging. We'll see if they can get three more victories here to close out the season. Zach, I want to thank you for the time. Please tell everybody where they can keep up with you and your work. Yeah, well, any sort of slash sports at Zach Osterman on Twitter, and I should say to where I'm kind of something in here, I'm more normally in the background, heart pacer stuff for my good friend Dustin, the peer act who's at Dustin, the pair act on Twitter.
Dustin will pick the football back up for game three. But I'm here. You get you get me and my my unapologetically bad writing between between now and the end of game two. So, I mean, it's it's a lot of fun. Usually, you know, it's funny before before Caitlin Clark came, the summers were often pretty quiet in Indianapolis, but between Caitlin Clark and Tyrese Halliburton, they're keeping us busier in June and July than we used to be. Yeah, I see Caitlin on her way back, too. So that'll be fun.
Lots of it. Zach, thank you so much for the time. We'll catch you soon down the line. OK, sounds good. Thanks so much for having me. Good talking to you.
