It was not pretty, but it was enough. The Indiana Pacers overcome a deficit of seven points with 40 seconds to play on Tuesday to defeat the Milwaukee Bucks, 119-118, winning the 4-1 series and progressing in the second round of the NBA qualifiers.
The victory was provided by Tyrese Haliburton, who put the Pacers in mind with 1.3 seconds on the clock.
It took an epic return and an epic collapse to get there. The Pacers were down to 20 regulatory points before their improbable rally with 40 seconds in overtime, while everything was fine. Andrew Nembhard made a 3 -point and Gary Trent Jr., who had shot the dollars to this advantage, committed an exasperating turnover.
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It left Haliburton to be the hero.
Before turnover, Trent looked like the man of the moment. He missed seven consecutive points at 3 points to start the match, then made eight of his last nine, including four in overtime to silence a crowd of the pacers who ended up having a little more noise at the end.
The Bucks played without Damian Lillard after The all-nba goalkeeper tore his Achilles in match 4. Trent helped to fill the gap with 33 points, while Giannis Antetokounmpo, with his even larger responsibilities, provided a triple-double with 30 points, 20 rebounds and 13 assists.
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Haliburton collected 26 points out of 10 shots out of 22 with nine assists and five rebounds.
The fourth quarter has seen significant swings for the two teams. The Pacers had an advance, then of the 3 consecutive points of Trent and AJ Green, plus one antetokoun and-1, put the dollars four with less than a minute.
Haliburton took over from there, shooting a fault and performing two free throws, then landing the dunk on an equalization with 10.8 seconds. Antetokounmpo then missed a potential match winner as time expired in the regulations.
The performance clearly meant a lot for Haliburton. After the match, he tweeted “Overestimating that“In reference to a recent survey of the NBA players in which he was the most common answer for the most surface player in the league.
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The Pacers will move forward to face the Cleveland riders, who swept Miami's warmth overwhelmingly Monday.
Pacers and dollars enter after the match
There seemed to be feelings last after the matchWhile Entertetokounmpo obtained a front-to-head with Haliburton's father, then was involved in a wider melee on the ground.
Incidents have extended to post-match interviews, with Haliburton Concede to his father was the father was not on the right to face antetokounmpo.
Despite the end of the season of his team, Antetokounmpo spoke with eloquence of the confrontation:
“I think you have to be humble in victory. This is how I'm. Now there can be a lot of people who can say:” No. When you win, you have to speak s ***. It is a green light so that you are disrespectful towards someone else. “I don't agree.
“I am not trying to minimize their efforts, but I remember when I won, my mother, she never missed a match of February 11 or 13 when she came to Milwaukee against the Knicks, she never missed a match. When we won a championship, I remember that my mother was afraid to cross. “Except now, my brother is doing the media for this year.
“I try to keep my family away from the game, but losing a game, the emotions are raised, having a fan, which, for the moment, I thought he was a fan but I realized was Tyrese's father. I love Tyrese. He is a great competitor – coming in the ground and showing me the napkin of his son with his face and I say:” I have the impression that it is very, very disrespectful. “”
Bucks opened the match on a huge race, then lost it
If the Bucks had a wooden mouth from The Lillard News, they did not show it at the start of the match. Playing in front of a hostile Indiana sung, Milwaukee opened the match on a 13-0 race and finished the first quarter at the top of 30-13.
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Haliburton was aimlessly, while Otetentokounmpo collected seven points, two rebounds and two assists in eight minutes.
It is difficult to keep a team with an offense like the Pacers Down. An advance that culminated at 20 points decreased at six at halftime and was completely erased at the beginning of the third quarter. Milwaukee can at least boast that he was far from The most mortified advance of 20 points of 20 points of this series series after losing a starry leader.
The Bucks played 2 days after Damian Lillard's Achilles tear.
He really can't be pointed out how much he is looking for dollars after losing Lillard.
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The entire long -term plan of the team, both to win and keep antetokounmpo happy, was built around associating Lillard with the Greek monster. The duo has never delivered the potential to combine two all-NBA talents, but it is a completely different deductible when it cannot count on Lillard to play next year.
At 34 – 35 at the start of the next season – Lillard is not guaranteed to be the same again. What will remain in place is his ceiling of $ 54.1 million for next season, plus a player option of $ 58.1 million for 2026-27, which he seems likely to take.
It is commendable that the Bucks played a competition match after having taken this blow and already down 3-1, but they now have an uncomfortable offseason before them when they try to find a way back to the fight against the East, with the possibility that everything that collapses if Antikounmpo decides that he wants.
