Pacers star guard Tyrese Haliburton says brother was called a racist name during Game 1 (with update)
Tyrese Haliburton said someone in the stands called his brother a racist slur during Game 1 of his team's NBA first-round playoff series against the Bucks in Fiserv Forum.
Haliburton, the star point guard for the Indiana Pacers, is from Oshkosh. He said his immediate family was in Milwaukee to attend the game but that his brother was harassed verbally.
"My family came out showed love, and it's been good to have them here," began Haliburton. "My little brother – in the stands the other day – was called the N-word. And so it was important for us as a family to just address that. And that was important for us to talk about because that just didn't sit right with anybody in our family."
This is Haliburton's first NBA playoff series and he helped led the Pacers to a win on Tuesday over the Bucks.
He's played in Milwaukee before, and on New Year's Day he said he was happy about getting his first win in Fiserv Forum. After that game he greeted his fans for so long that the ushers finally had to shoo everyone out of the arena.
Here’s part of what @TyHaliburton22 said.
He’s from Oshkosh, WI
He played a regular season game here on January 1 and spent more than an hour post-game greeting fans.
Playoff games 1 & 2 here were a different story https://t.co/JnIF8ik6A3 pic.twitter.com/YzavsWTEoN— Lori Nickel (@LoriNickel) April 24, 2024
Tuesday after the game, Haliburton said it was important to him to have his family with him.
"And my little brother handled that the right way," he said. "So yeah, I thought we did a good job of handling this environment. Obviously the conversations – it's friendly during the regular season because I'm the hometown kid but it's a little different when you're visiting in this environment. But it's all part of it and we're just trying to do right by that. We're just excited to go in front of our fans and play in front of a great crowd."
The Bucks offered this response at the request of the Indianapolis Star, as shared by a Star reporter via social media:
"An arena guest services representative reported that during Sunday’s game a few guests were not sitting in their correct seats. The guest services representative asked the group to move one section over to their correct seats. Then, one of the individuals in the group claimed to the representative that a person sitting in front of him had used a derogatory term toward him. The accused person denied the accusation. The group moved to their correct seats and no further incident was reported. We take our fan environment extremely seriously and are committed to providing a safe and secure experience."
The Star said, per a league source, security was notified of the incident, but the fan involved was not removed from the game.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Pacers' Haliburton says brother was called racist name during Game 1
