{"id":133706,"date":"2025-04-11T11:51:03","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T15:51:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=133706"},"modified":"2025-04-11T11:51:03","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T15:51:03","slug":"tyrese-haliburton-pacers-clinch-home-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/04\/11\/tyrese-haliburton-pacers-clinch-home-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacers’ December Turnaround Results in Top-Four Seed"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a weird beginning to the 2024-25 NBA campaign in the Eastern Conference. Expected\u00a0<\/span>playoff and championship-contending teams<\/span><\/a>\u00a0missed the crack of the starter pistol and started slow and sluggish. It happened to the\u00a0<\/span>Milwaukee Bucks<\/span><\/a>, Philadelphia 76ers, New York Knicks, and Indiana Pacers. The 76ers were the only team of the four <\/span>never to find their footing and get their season back on track; injuries halted whatever momentum they managed to find, as minimal as it was. The other three teams managed to do the opposite: turn around their seasons before it was too late. In the case of the Pacers,\u00a0<\/span>Tyrese Haliburton<\/span><\/a>\u00a0is fully aware that this season could have gone much differently had he and his team not turned things around in early December<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pacers’ December Turnaround Results in Top-Four Seed<\/h2>\n

Tyrese Haliburton reflects on Pacers sluggish start and being one game away from 50-win season<\/h3>\n

That turnaround subsequently vaulted the Pacers to a top-four seed and another hopeful deep playoff run. Since December 8th, Indiana has a 39-16 record, one of the best across the league, only behind the Oklahoma City Thunder and Eastern counterparts, the Boston Celtics and\u00a0<\/span>Cleveland Cavaliers<\/span><\/a>. After their conference finals appearance last season, it was troubling to see Indiana start this season 10-15. They were massively underperforming, and Haliburton also struggled to get going.<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, that slow start turned into a hot progression of wins, and the Pacers climbed back up the Eastern Conference ladder to where they now have home-court advantage in round one of the upcoming postseason.\u00a0<\/span>According to Dustin Dopirak of\u00a0<\/span><\/a>The Indianapolis Star<\/span><\/a><\/em>, Haliburton recognizes where the Pacers have come from and what he and his teammates have gone through to get to where they are today.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s special for us knowing what we\u2019ve been through to get here and how this started<\/em>,\u201d Haliburton said. \u201cWe\u2019re a game away from having a 50-win season. That could be something because time is moving so fast that you just let happen and you move forward, but it\u2019s a special year especially with how this started. \u2026 Early in the year it was just really a struggle. I\u2019d be lying to you if I told you it was easy for me personally and all the things I was dealing with. For us to get here, honestly, I love the guys in our locker room, the coaching staff, how much those guys mean to me and all my loved ones because it was a tough time<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another deep playoff run in the works?<\/h3>\n

Indiana’s playoff success last year was surprising; there’s no doubt about it. They knocked off the Bucks (albeit without Giannis Antetokounmpo), and they dispatched the Knicks in what was the most entertaining series of them all. The Celtics eventually put the Pacers to bed, but not before Indiana made serious noise and lifted hope and expectations for seasons to come.<\/p>\n

Another season has gone by, and Indiana is facing an opportunity to mirror last year’s success. Whether they have what it takes to take down the likes of Cleveland or Boston is something NBA fans can only hope to see. Indiana will be no easy out, and Rick Carlisle has his guys playing their best basketball of the year. As for Haliburton, he’s on a superstar trajectory, and how he needs to shine brighter than ever if the Pacers want to go deep, again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a weird beginning to the 2024-25 NBA campaign in the Eastern Conference. Expected\u00a0playoff and championship-contending teams\u00a0missed the crack of the starter pistol and started slow and sluggish. It happened to the\u00a0Milwaukee Bucks, Philadelphia 76ers, New York Knicks, and Indiana Pacers. The 76ers were the only team of the four never to find their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":133709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1608,62],"tags":[2607],"class_list":["post-133706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pacers","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-tyrese-haliburton"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133706"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133711,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133706\/revisions\/133711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}