The NBA In-Season Tournament knockout round got started with a bang. The Indiana Pacers hosted the Boston Celtics, who were the odds-on favorites to win the inaugural title entering the knockout portion of the tournament, to kick things off. The odds are going to have to be adjusted as the Pacers knocked off the heavily favored Celtics, 122-112 in a thrilling contest.
The tournament has worked better than most people ever expected it to. The arenas for the designated games have a playoff atmosphere as the players seem motivated by the chance to win up to $500,000 if they can take home the championship. Look how excited the Indiana bench gets when Aaron Nesmith throws down this dunk late in the game on their way to victory.
The Pacers are now Las Vegas bound as they will be playing in the semifinals later this week. Their opponent will be decided on Tuesday night, as they will face off against the winner of the second Eastern Conference knockout round game between the New York Knicks and Milwaukee Bucks.
NBA NEWS & STATS: Tyrese Haliburton, Boston Celtics, Indiana Pacers Updates
A driving force behind Indiana’s advancing is their star point guard, Tyrese Haliburton. He has been producing some eye-popping statistics through the 2023-24 NBA regular season and Monday night was no different.
Haliburton came to play, recording the first-triple double of his career in the victory. He scored a team-high 26 points to go along with 10 rebounds and 13 assists. According to Stat Muse on X, formerly known as Twitter, he is also the first player this season to record a triple-double against the Celtics.
What made that triple-double performance even more special was how efficiently Haliburton was able to pile up his stats. He shot 10-of-18 from the field and 5-of-11 from 3-point range, making his only free throw attempt as well.
NBA NEWS & STATS: Tyrese Haliburton, Boston Celtics, Indiana Pacers Updates
The most impressive part? Haliburton didn’t record a single turnover in his 40 minutes of play. That put him in rarified air, as he is only the third player in NBA history to have a 25/10/10 game with zero turnovers in a game at age 23 or younger. He joins Nikola Jokic, who did it in 2018, and Grant Hill, who did it in 1996.
In what was a historic night for the NBA in the first knockout games of the inaugural In-Season Tournament, Haliburton put on a show in a night he will also always remember.
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