FIRST TAKE | Tyrese Haliburton’s injury will impact Indiana Pacers next season? – Stephen A. Smith

FIRST TAKE | Tyrese Haliburton’s injury will impact Indiana Pacers next season? – Stephen A. Smith

welcome back to First Take an extremely unfortunate scene in yesterday’s finals game as Tyrese Halleurn exited with an Achilles injury in the first quarter hallebertton is one of several notable players to suffer this injury along with Tatum and Lillard marke Morris joining us now marke top of the morning to you uh tell me this how does Halleurn’s injury affect the rest of the East next year uh it just it just adds to the list of injuries man um it was already a wide openen east and first let me say this man get well soon brother man I know I know that feeling as a player like absolutely going down in one of the biggest games bro just get well soon family praying for you everybody’s praying for you man everybody want to see you do good but it just changed even trajectory of Indiana like even even with them like what direction do they go in like I I mean it’s it’s one of those things where it just opens the East up a lot more than than what it what it already was like it’s just an unfortunate event i’ll tell you one thing it puts a lot of pressure on the New York Knicks i’ll tell you that i mean you got Boston if you want to say they’re in a gap year we’ll see what Jaylen Brown does as Superman for that team we don’t know what’s happening with the Milwaukee Bucks even though everything is okay for now with Giannis uh Cleveland is bringing back that same lineup that’ll put pressure on Cleveland they get over the hump you got Miami that’s still an option potentially for Giannis making moves but as you think about this thing is wide open next year because this guy’s the engine for their team so Leon Rose and Worldwide West and the Knicks and Jaylen Brunson with the crew they have right now is that enough and now does that make that market more attractive for a head coach that sees how open the Eastern Conference is right now to say that’s a job that now that I want i don’t have a dis I don’t have a disagreement with what you said i have a problem with you not elaborating extending it far beyond those players you’re the New York Knicks and you let go of Tom Pivot where the hell is your plan what kind of replacement did you have in place what kind of succession plan did you have you just going to get rid of the dude and then you asking the Atlanta Hawks for permission to talk to Quinn Snider i mean you got to be kidding me you can’t and no disrespect to Quinn Snder but you don’t replace Tom Thibido with Quinn Snyder so now they’re talking about Taylor Jenkins the former coach in Memphis who we all respect is a damn good coach but he hasn’t achieved more than Tom Thibido so that’s a that’s an issue there and then you have to look at the deals that Leon Rose made for Muel Bridges where you trade five first round picks for unprotected which limited your ability to go and get a KD who wanted to come to New York who you were interested in bringing to New York but you didn’t really have the requisite assets to to be appealing enough to the Phoenix Suns so all of those things are relevant let’s also remember the Miami Heat have to be on the clock to some degree you don’t want to get Kevin Durant be up Jamez and Highmith that would mean really that would mean that Miami has earlier that would mean that Miami has to be all in on Giannis hold on okay fine you’re going to take a swing take a swing or something like all right if I give these stats I have to be all for you goalkeeper versus where they are or or or they’re saying or they’re saying with all those injuries we could possibly win with this team oh no that’s another thing that Miami could come about they better not be saying that Keith in the East you can’t with that with with with that team i’m just saying in the East with the way the East looks right now what you do you have to do you have to game plan to beat the Cleveland team okay other than that it’s it’s it’s wide open stay right there Keith i gotta ask for next year alone i got you i got you i gotta say this in front of you and Jay right here oh I can’t wait to say this to both of y’all are you trying to tell me that KD with Tyler Hero and Bam out of bio with the Knicks absence of depth Cleveland getting exposed and Jason Tatum getting hurt you trying to tell me you’re the Miami Heat and you didn’t see that opportunity right in front of your face and Stephen A we’re gonna get into that because we have this Miami on on another I said this earlier what’ you say Keith what did you say no I’m sorry i I said this earlier i was disappointed that Miami he didn’t make this happen that that doesn’t make sense it’s exactly what you said no disrespect to the players how many high cast high smith and joke jokic like I’m giving that up for for a player of KD come on man for KD in South Beach i hear you you got to make that you this is what I’m listen but the Knicks need to capitalize as well as Miami on this i understand that but but the Knicks lost to an Indiana Pacers team that one could argue they would not have lost to if Tyrese Hallebertton was was was not playing with Tyrese Hallebertton out this up next season clearly because of the torn Achilles you could still look at the New York Knicks as presently constructed and you have the potential to make noise miami is not in that class miami is not in that class and this is why I brought up Pat Riley and I said this is the winner within one of the great great champions i love and rever this man Pat Riley but at some point in time how many players are you missing out on getting to South Beach it’s South Beach y’all i’m trying to Everybody Jay’s here keith’s here ain’t too many people don’t want to come to South Beach now am I lying am I lying Jay am I lying keith who don’t want to go to Miami come on now can I bring up that can I bring up the complete opposite though go ahead please i mean obviously we’re going to talk about New York obviously gonna talk about Miami yeah and a lot of pressure I think on New York more so than Miami even though a lot of pressure question on Miami yes i think it puts the most pressure on the Cleveland Cavaliers though okay i mean if there if there was ever a window or a door open for Donovan Mitchell and all the talk that people are talking about he can’t be a superstar he’s too small daryus Garland the injuries they’ve had it has to be now for Cleveland i’m still you know what I and I got to tell you something right now everybody keeps forgetting the Detroit Pistons without Stewart without Ivy they’ll be back next year right i believe in Detroit y’all i believe in Detroit we’ve got Detroit Cleveland Miami and New York that need to capitalize next year yes yeah those four teams all right let’s leave it there we got to dive more into this Miami situation because the Rockets got their guy but did Miami make a mistake not pushing all of their chips in to bring KD to South Beach they’ve missed on superstars before we’ll break that down are SGA and Jaylen Williams now the most dangerous duo in the association and what message did OKC send to the rest of the league last night well performance he’s get He gets nine points in the first few minutes of the game on the road it’s so hard to get going he’s got them going he’s feeling it he’s got Mark Dagonal on the bench yelling to his team “You’ve got to close out on Hallebertton he’s hot.” That’s what was happening there they were Shane was closing out to him he was about to drive to the basket potentially to get a basket and a foul and then you have this moment happen it’s going to be fair or not one of the great whatifs we always remember because of how gutting it was a as a former player and we’ve seen this multiple times seen it with KD we’ve seen it with Jason Tatum we’ve seen it with Dame when he went down the first thing he did was start slapping the ground i knew it was a torn Achilles i think everybody felt it right there in that situation because he knew you know a lot of times when you have these types of injuries and you get cal strains we hear Steph deciding not to play when I see chatter on social media people then saying “Hey you got to play through it.” I’m like “Well not so sure you do have to play through it.” Aaron Gordon played through it he played through it he was okay but this is this is what leaders fighters do you have your own decision to make you put your body on the line each and every day and now we’re talking about a guy that may be out for the next year so yes OKC deserves all the praise gave that to him in the first hour but now you’re talking about a guy I can sit out the next year of the season jwell that’s exactly how I did mine watching uh Hie you know just the push back on a cut trying to go aggressive you know to the basket but I do think you mentioned something that’s really important the mentality because you know as athletes you understand you sign up for these types of circumstances and my goodness someone asked me yesterday like “How would you grade the Pacers season?” I would say “I’m proud of this squad this is someone that this is a team that goes as how he goes with this fearless mentality they feel like they’re always in a game.” So when he exits first of all the beautiful shot you know shot of his entire team there when he exits now they still feel like they have a fighting chance because it’s a mind over matter thing he went into the finals with that same mentality and now you see how it permeates to his team speedy recovery but it was really tough to see you know off that point what what made this game so compelling besides the fact that it was obviously a game seven but but this series really hasn’t had that kind of juice but from that point forward watching the way the Pacers closed the half the Nemhard shot to take the lead at the half you’re leaning forward now in your chair saying “Can they do this?” Like what an inspiring story this would be if they could somehow find a way with their leader out to pull off a win and there was no doubt in my mind i thought they could do it it wasn’t as if there’s no chance they can win this game i thought it made it even more compelling can they win it and up until about eight minutes to go in the third quarter it looked like they were still right there score is tied couple of threes made and you could see their heart kind of come out of it obie Toppin referenced it but still what an emotional moment but also showed you how much that team while you said be proud of that Pacer team their depth they still had a chance despite the fact they lost let’s be as clear as we can be there are no asterisks in sports there is no asterisk here the Thunder are deserving champions in the same way that the Raptors were a few years ago one of the keys to winning a championship in any sport is remaining healthy a little bit of good fortune all of that so none of this is to take anything away from OKC or their title but Markefe can can you describe from a player’s perspective the emotions that you go through when you see your leader go down maty Hallebertton is their best player he he has they’ve been the kind of team that as he goes so go they what emotions go through his teammates when he’s lying there pounding the hardwood in pain i just think you just felt sorry for the moment right man a player of that magnitude not being able to finish the moment that he was in right he started off the game so well and if you take it back to game six he played well also so you didn’t really see like you kind of almost forgot about the injury right because of the pace he was playing at because of how good he started the game and how good it was last game right but the emotion in the second quarter when it happened that’s what the Indiana Pacers were playing out he was playing high off of emotion right but once it was settled down because OKC was kind of affected too but once it was settled down um OKC just put it on him man you won’t have your your best decision maker your your go-to guy on the court and then and then once the third quarter started once OKC put it on him there was no way up it was no way out of it nobody could actually score a bucket but TJ McConnell literally he was the only person that scored a bucket from the 8minute mark in the third quarter for 10 whole minutes so you could see them unravel and and rightfully so like I didn’t think they had I didn’t think they had a chance once he went down but it was good to see it was good to see Indiana fight in in some some sort of way but it was over once Hollerberg went down the the I brought this up last week and and I said in the moment I I don’t even like putting it out into the ether because but you can’t help but think about what happened with Kevin Durant in the finals that year and I remember I will remember for the rest of my life you flying back with him and then coming on our show doing the whole show the next morning after you had been there how would you describe the similarities of the circumstances and your recollections of this one of the most memorable and terrible moments in NBA history number one the irony of the fact that KD goes to Houston on the day that this happens yesterday first uh secondly just the the feeling being in that building next to Rich Kimman who is his manager of 35 Ventures and obviously has been helping orchestrate a lot of this stuff uh just like the the mouth wide open that please don’t be that please don’t be that and and then the the biggest thing probably is postwise being with KD and with their team and literally hearing them talk about the diagnosis of like you know strained calf and what goes into that and the probability of it tearing an Achilles or not and like like Shane was talking about playing through that making the decision in that moment to say I am willing to put it on the line and play through if this injury occurs i mean the circumstances were we were those of us who were doing these this job will remember Kevin Durant wasn’t playing he had sat up multiple games with that injury and there were people questioning it the whole Western Conference final and there were people questioning him right I mean the probably questioning his toughness of credibility but same thing with Tyrese right like oh he’s kind of soft or he doesn’t play the right way because they fell behind 3-1 in the series to the underdog Raptors that was it was like can Kevin come back and rescue them that was the expectation in that moment that night and I think the difference in the narrative going into the NBA finals and like the last few games was that Tyrese had already been the hero i think people were already saying “Hey you can sit like if you don’t play we understand because you’re learning from the past and watching from instances of Kevin Durant which is why I commend him for pushing through because he understood I would not be able to live with myself with a shot at an NBA championship knowing that how he started the game was sensational.” Like he felt like he was so close and I’m not going to lie for game six a lot of us were like “We don’t think this team can do it with him less than 100%.” and how did he produce he probably they probably played one of their best games we’ve seen this season so I think it’s a tough turnaround and he played 24 minutes in that game too so I feel like he got ample rest look I mean these are the things that happen unfortunately and it will be part of the history of this game forever but the Thunder are the champions and that doesn’t change we have much more on them it was a thunder foreign speech foreign speech foreign speech [Music] come on now coming up anyone what’s going on [Music] [Music] you don’t [Music] have Yeah [Music] no foreign speech foreign speech foreign speech [Music] in the night [Music] easy [Music] huh [Music] no daddy [Music] [Music] [Music] they go Ah [Music] no [Music] one You want me [Music] thank you [Music] oh little gear [Music] [Music] come on 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FIRST TAKE | Tyrese Haliburton’s injury will impact Indiana Pacers next season? – Stephen A. Smith