Tyrese Haliburton knows he was bad in Game 5; here’s what he (and the Pacers) need to do

INDIANAPOLIS -- Tyrese Haliburton’s self-diagnosis after the Pacers' Game 5 loss to the Knicks was familiar, his refrains similar to what he said after Indiana's Game 1 loss in this Eastern Conference semifinals series as well as their Game 1 loss to the Bucks in the first round.

Haliburton scored more points in Tuesday's 121-91 loss than he did in those previous quiet performances, finishing with 13 on 5 of 9 shooting after scoring nine in Game 1 of the Bucks series and just six in Game 1 against the Knicks. Still, the games in between showed clearly that the Pacers are better when Haliburton is productive as he scored 35 points in Indiana's Game 3 victory and then 20 on 15 shots in a Game 4 when when he and the rest of the starters didn't have to play in the fourth quarter because the game was effectively decided.

Game 5 represented a backslide and Haliburton knew it, and he knows it has to be reversed in Game 6 or the Pacers season could end on Friday night. Down 3-2, the Pacers will be facing elimination for the first time in these playoffs in Eastern Conference semifinals Game 6 against the Knicks at 8:30 p.m. on Friday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

"There has to be an upwards tick in level of aggression from me," Haliburton said. "I don't think that's a secret to anybody who is watching the series or anybody in our organization. They know that. It's not a secret to me. I'll be better."

Establishing that aggression in this game, however, will require him solving a slightly different problem than he has at any point in these playoffs and it will require significant cooperation from his teammates and coaching staff.

In the series' first four games, Haliburton was defended by Knicks sharpshooter Donte DiVincenzo, who battled hard in the matchup and frequently jammed Haliburton on inbounds passes to begin possessions. However, DiVincenzo didn't bring nearly as much intensity to his ball pressure as guard Miles McBride did on Tuesday and he didn't go into full-scale denial mode the way McBride did either.

McBride came off the bench at the beginning of the series as he had much of the season, but the Knicks had to shuffle lineups when forward OG Anunoby went down with a hamstring strain late in Game 2. In Games 3 and 4, the Knicks went with a big lineup, starting the 6-8 Precious Achiuwa at power forward and keeping the other four starters -- DiVincenzo, Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Isaiah Hartenstein -- in their spots. Achiuwa had some struggles, however, and the Knicks generally didn't play with the same overall level of intensity in Game 4 as they had in the previous three games. So coach Tom Thibodeau shook things up and moved McBride into the starting lineup and moved Achiuwa out, starting four players 6-4 or shorter around the 7-foot Hartenstein to get faster and quicker and keep more shooting on the floor.

And McBride guarded Haliburton in full-court denial every time he was on the floor. From the initial inbound to the end of the possession, McBride followed Haliburton everywhere he went and he was practically up in his shirt, forcing him to get rid of the ball early in possessions and keeping him from getting open and getting the ball back once he did.

"Obviously he had great impact in the two games in Indy, scoring, being able to facilitate," McBride said after the game. "I just wanted to limit his touches as much (as possible) because you can't do any of those things if you don't have the ball."

So Haliburton didn't pass up shots as much as he didn't have his hands on the ball to shoot in the first place. Still, he acknowledged that getting the ball requires a certain amount of aggression in itself. After he passes, he said, he has to be more active to get open off the ball and also go to the ball to make himself more of an immediate passing target. On the flip side, he doesn't want to break up other actions that his teammates are running and keep from from scoring on their own when the option is there, but he has to realize his own capacity for scoring and creating.

"I'm not running to get the ball when dudes are in the middle of the pick-and-roll or in the middle of dribble moves, stuff like that," Haliburton said. "Just figuring it out, but at the end of the day I have to be better at getting the ball. They're doing a good job denying, we can give y'all the schemes of screening for me and all that kind of stuff but I just gotta go get the ball. It's angles, physicality, all of that is a part of it. A will. I just have to do a job of matching the intensity for 48 minutes."

As Haliburton alluded to, if he's to come get the ball, the Pacers need to work to make sure McBride isn't right on his tail when he does. Frequently in Game 5, Haliburton was seen stepping back 35 feet or more from the rim, directing traffic without the ball while taking McBride out of the play and essentially making the game 4-on-4. If he's going to bring McBride back into the action, he will need help neutralizing the pesky guard.

"A lot of off-the-ball screening," Pacers center Myles Turner said. "That's pretty much what it's going to have to be. If they're going to deny him full court, you have to find ways to get him open. It's just part of the game when it comes to the playoffs. You have your main guy and the guy they're hoping to try to take out or nullify, it's making more of a concerted effort as a team to get him open."

Of course, Pacers coach Rick Carlisle was quick to point out that Haliburton's lack of scoring didn't rank very high on his list of what caused the Pacers to lose Game 5. The much more obvious reason was the laughable rebounding gap, as the Knicks grabbed 53 boards to the Pacers' 29 and 20 offensive rebounds to the Pacers five. That led to the Knicks scoring 26 second-chance points and finishing with 101 field goal attempts to the Pacers' 72.

He said the best thing Haliburton could do to get going would be to help in the effort to change those numbers.

"Go rebound the (expletive) ball," Carlisle said. "Don't take it out of the net and things will be a lot different."

Haliburton acknowledged he has to do more on that end and that he had a particularly rough defensive performance in Game 5. He was most defending McBride, who scored 17 points. McBride frequently brought him into actions with Knicks All-Star point guard Jalen Brunson with guard-to-guard screens and Haliburton was not particularly effective in those scenarios.

"Going back and watching the film, it felt like I was bad, but going back and watching the film, it feels even worse," Haliburton said. "Just figuring out how I can fix those things is kind of the biggest things for me. ... Just my angles and my shows. My closeout angles, and then just helping rebound."

Haliburton averaged 3.9 rebounds per game this season and is averaging 5.0 per game for the playoffs, but had just two defensive rebounds in Game 5 and didn't grab any on the offensive glass.

"It's understanding a lot of times when Hartenstein or those guys crash, they're not necessarily crashing to get two hands out of the ball, they're crashing to just tip," Haliburton said. "We had a conversation with our bigs, that if you just box yours out, our guards can do a better job of coming down. That starts with me getting down and rebounding and helping out."

Because at the end of the day, the Pacers can't get the ball to Haliburton if they can't get it in the first place.

"If you can't come up with the ball and have at least a respectable level of possession for the game," Carlisle said, "you're not going to win in the second round of the NBA playoffs. We have to be better there."

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: What Tyrese Haliburton (and the Pacers) need to do better in Game 6