Indiana
The Indiana Pacers Will Kill You With Weirdness
If I ventured in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dream
Where immobile steel rims crack
And the ditch in the back roads stop
Could you find me?
—Van Morrison, “Astral Weeks”
There isn’t really any way of overstating it: What Tyrese Haliburton did on Tuesday night in Indianapolis communed with the immortals. In a pivotal Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals, Haliburton logged 32 points, 12 rebounds, 15 assists, five 3-pointers, four steals, and zero turnovers in a 130-121 win over the New York Knicks. One of the greatest performances from an NBA point guard, ever. And it’s brought the Indiana Pacers to a 3-1 series lead, just one win away from the franchise’s first NBA Finals appearance in 25 years.
It was the type of game that not only cemented Haliburton as a bona fide superstar but also may well inspire the next generation of point guards to embrace the quirks in their own style of play. For years, Haliburton has pushed against the insularity of basketball’s collective aesthetic bias. His economy of motion is bewildering. His dribble is slippery. His shot mechanics are perfectly hideous. There is almost a cartoonish, slapstick quality to his game that feels out of time but also uniquely suited to representing basketball today. He prances around like Martin Prince but shoots like Bobby Hill. And it’s fucking amazing. You know what’s overrated? Being cool is overrated. I’ll hear from the boss if I’m overstepping here, but I’m ready to call it: All hail the new Dork Elvis.
The freewheeling habitus inherent to Haliburton’s style belies the precision of his game. The lack of turnovers in Game 4 was no fluke: Tuesday night’s master class was Hali’s 11th career game with at least a 15-to-0 assist-to-turnover ratio, according to Sportradar’s Todd Whitehead. Only John Stockton (14) and Chris Paul (13) have more such games. Haliburton may well lap the field several times over by the end of his career; he’s only 25. The game whirrs around him, and the Pacers stir up frenzy only to cocoon themselves within it. But chaos can be harnessed. Great point guards create an overarching sense of beauty and order in the game. And within that framework is a new logic, imminently translatable across the rest of the team. It widens the scope of possibility, magnifies what a teammate believes himself capable of achieving. It can embolden an otherwise tunnel-visioned decision-maker like Bennedict Mathurin to make the right pass on a drive. It can expand the imagination of a player like Myles Turner, allowing him to be receptive to a pass he knows wouldn’t normally be delivered.
On a 15-assist night, one play stood out as uniquely Hali. Roughly midway through the third quarter, Haliburton bolted into a double-drag screen meant to toss Mikal Bridges in a pinball machine. There was the slightest window for a low-angle pocket pass to a rolling Turner—Haliburton faked the pass, and Turner dipped his torso low accordingly, just in case the ball did head toward him. The fake momentarily froze Karl-Anthony Towns, which created an awkward logjam as Bridges reentered the play—the two Knicks effectively ran into each other trying to stop the ball, leaving Turner unobstructed under the basket. Haliburton jumped in the air and double-clutched for a moment before sending a side-angle lob for an easy layup. Classic Hali. The type of play that inspired the perfect gift for the Haliburton fan in your life: a T-shirt that reads Jump passes are good now.
“My game is a little unorthodox,” Haliburton said after the game. “I jump to pass probably more than anybody in the NBA. But I work on that stuff.”
The effect Haliburton has on the Pacers offense is akin to a slipstream, reducing drag and creating a structure that maximizes the efficiency of the players flanking him. And there aren’t many players over the past decade who have benefited from playing within the slipstream of a superstar more than Pascal Siakam, who killed the Knicks softly in Game 4 with an absurdly efficient 30 points. Siakam’s breakout season ran concurrently with Kawhi Leonard’s lone season in Toronto; it’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly six years since Game 1 of the 2019 NBA Finals—wherein Siakam was the best player in a game that featured at least five future Hall of Famers. Six years later, this version of Siakam is the most realized yet. Credit aerodynamics. Credit the synchronicity of strangeness that powers the Pacers’ chaos engine.
Siakam is a perfect stylistic complement to Haliburton—a kindred weirdo who doesn’t have presets, whose unorthodoxy is a purely individual expression of how he intuits the game. Maybe more than any other star in the league, Pascal’s game does not track as a collage of outside influences. On a TNT pregame show earlier in the series, Draymond Green mentioned Siakam as one of his toughest covers—he acknowledged losing his defensive matchup to Siakam handily in those 2019 Finals. Green, one of the greatest defenders of the century, is a super-processor of information, but that relies on endless mental simulations of the most probable outcomes. Siakam, as ever, slip-slides away from such categorizations.
He’s always been known for his spin move, but where it was once overly telegraphed, the move has become more and more dictated by reading the micro-movements of his defender—an organic response to his environment. As soon as you get accustomed to the spin, Siakam is liable to feign the motion only to slip into a behind-the-back dribble to catch you off-balance:
Nothing is premeditated. The game flows when you read and react. Siakam’s sudden emergence as a steady spot-up shooter from deep has unlocked all the frontiers of his versatility, allowing him to truly inhabit the offense as an omni-dimensional presence. It’s a testament to the Pacers’ deep and abiding understanding of Haliburton’s ethos that they doubled down on unorthodoxy with his lead running mate. It’s what makes this team special.
The Pacers are now 11-3 in the postseason and 45-17 since the New Year—a .726 win percentage. They’ve been one of the four best teams in the NBA for a while now. And should things hold across both conference finals series—which mirror each other at 3-1 apiece—then these games of attrition will have gotten things right: The Thunder and Pacers are the two best teams remaining. The Pacers play an outrageously fun, visceral style of up-tempo basketball. They pressure. They drive and kick with almost unilateral focus. They have a coach who is unendingly curious and open to riding the shifting winds of the game. The Pacers are tantalizingly close to the promised land. Their guiding lights may not look like the kinds of stars we’ve grown familiar with, but their difference has been the difference.
Danny Chau
Chau writes about the NBA and gustatory pleasures, among other things. He is the host of ‘Shift Meal.’ He is based in Toronto.
Indiana
50+ Indiana counties under travel advisories after snow storm. See map
Safety and preparation are the keys to staying safe this winter
Officials talk about winter preparedness, safety, tips. Safety and preparation are the keys. Here are some tips.
At least 50 Indiana counties are under a travel advisory, and 20 counties were issued a travel watch for Dec. 14, following an overnight snow storm.
The Indiana Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) travel advisory map has each county shaded in red for a travel warning, orange for a travel watch, yellow for a travel advisory and gray for a county without an elevated status report on it’s current travel conditions.
Here’s how you can check your county to see where it lands on the map.
Travel advisory
According to DHS, a travel advisory is the lowest level of a related advisory.
“Routine travel or activities may be restricted in areas because of a hazardous situation, and individuals should use caution or avoid those areas,” the department says on its website.
Watch advisory
According to DHS, a watch advisory is issued when conditions are threatening to a county’s safety.
“Only essential travel, such as to and from work or in emergency situations, is recommended, and emergency action plans should be implemented by businesses, schools, government agencies and other organizations,” the department’s website states.
Warning advisory
According to DHS, a warning advisory is the highest level of a related advisory, where people may be told not to travel at all.
“Travel may be restricted to emergency management workers only,” the department’s website states.
Here’s the winter weather info you need
🚨 Indiana Weather Alerts: Warnings, Watches and Advisories.
⚡ Indiana power outage map: How to check your status.
💻 Internet outages: How to track them.
🚫 What you should and shouldn’t do when the power is out.
🐶 Your neighbor left their pet outside. Who you should call.
Indianapolis weather radar
Jade Jackson is a public safety reporter for the Indianapolis Star. You can email her at Jade.Jackson@IndyStar.com and follow her on X, formerly Twitter @IAMJADEJACKSON.
Indiana
What Darian DeVries, Tucker DeVries Said After Indiana Basketball’s Loss at Kentucky
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Indiana basketball coach Darian DeVries and senior forward Tucker DeVries met with reporters after the Hoosiers’ 72-60 loss to Kentucky on Saturday night at Rupp Arena in Lexington.
Here’s what the DeVries duo said during their near-seven-minute press conference.
Q: I guess, Darian, it’s sort of another night where it feels like it just kind of gets difficult to really break down an opponent off the dribble, kind of get that inside-out sort of paint touch to three looks you want, just like what, I guess, are you guys, what’s not happening there, what’s just kind of sort of failing at the source offensively when that’s not working?
DD: Yeah, I thought the first half, you know, we got some pretty good action, pretty good movement, I thought the second half, Kentucky certainly turned up the pressure and was able to get into us and we didn’t respond well enough and we turned the ball over too much and live ball turnovers against them are really hard because now they’re out in transition playing in space, so the turnovers and the offensive rebounding, I mean, that flipped the game around that second half.
Q: On Kentucky’s long run, what was the problem there?
Yeah, I thought the turnovers, it was a combination of things, I thought, you know, we left our feet a few times, I thought we just, you know, got on our heels a little bit and didn’t play as disciplined as we needed to, you know, as that, you know, the crowd got cranked up and things, that’s the time where you got to really dig in a little bit more, your screen’s got to be better, you got to play off of two feet more, and then the offensive rebounds, you know, they just went and got them and, you know, we didn’t do a good enough job of creating space and getting bodies and going and securing the ball.
Q: What do you think you need to improve on, the team needs to improve on against ball pressure at the point of attack?
DD: Yeah, the number one thing when you get at ball pressure is everything from an execution standpoint and a movement standpoint, it’s just got to be done with more force, you can’t continue just to get pushed out and everybody stands, so you have to find ways to give yourself up with a back hook, give yourself up with a screen, set up those screens with more force, you know, and get some movement to, you know, even as, you know, they had gotten ahead and we started to break it off a little bit, once we got movement again, we were able to get those clean looks or better looks, so it’s something we got to get better at, there’s no question.
Q: Tucker, your individual line tonight was really great, I mean, your effort was fantastic, 15 points, 7 rebounds, a lot of the three point shots tonight didn’t go down like they normally do for the Hoosiers, what do you think that is, was it just not seeing the basket as well, was it the defense, was it not in the offense where you were getting clean looks?
TUCKER DEVRIES: To be honest, making and missing shots, I thought tonight, honestly, wasn’t a problem, I know, certainly, I did not shoot it great, as a team we didn’t shoot that great either from three, but, you know, even with that being said, I think there were certainly areas that we needed to be a lot better at, as a group, and if we were able to, you know, especially in the second half, execute in those areas, I think that would have made up for some of those, you know, shooting habits and miscues, but, you know, making them missing shots sometimes is basketball, but I thought in the other areas, if we could just, you know, execute there a little bit.
Q: On that, if shots maybe weren’t the problem, what kind of was, do you think?
TUCKER: I mean, he hit on it pretty good, the turnovers and obviously the offensive rebounds they had, especially in the second half. I mean, I take full responsibility for both of those areas. Obviously, four turnovers is far too many. As a group, I think when they pick up the pressure, I think we just need to really focus on our execution a little bit more on every possession. But good thing is we get a good week here before we play again to really dial in on some of those areas that we’ve maybe lacked in the beginning.
Q: When Lamar picked up his fourth foul and missed nearly nine minutes, what went wrong offensively?
DD: Yeah, I don’t remember the exact sequences there, but, you know, not having Lamar out there is certainly a big part of our offense, and, you know, his foul trouble tonight certainly limited him with only the 21 minutes because he was, again, he’s, you know, a big focal piece of what we try to run our offense through, so, you know, I believe during that little stretch that he wasn’t out there, that’s when the turnovers started to happen and
we weren’t able to get into, you know, maybe some of our actions the way we needed to.
Q: Darian, you mentioned Kentucky’s offensive rebound and kind of flipping that game. Was that just their physicality, their effort out beating you guys or something else that you saw going on?
DD: Yeah, I thought their effort, their physicality in the second half was, you know, really good. I mean, they certainly cranked it up a notch in that second half and we needed to respond to it, but, you know, I thought their aggressiveness defensively, their aggressiveness in the offensive glass, you know, was ultimately the factor.
Q: Darian, you mentioned Lamar, but how much did the foul trouble for not just him, but other guys, affect you tonight?
DD: I mean, foul trouble is foul trouble. You have it every night, so you’ve got to figure out a way to deal with it and, you know, we just didn’t do a good enough job with that.
Q: Just to follow up on that, with this team, and you’ve talked about sort of where you are with the two bigs and things like that, like does foul trouble become sort of a compounding problem when it disrupts rotations? It felt tonight like maybe guys were just not either on the floor long enough to find the rhythm or maybe had to be on the floor too long because other guys were in foul trouble.
DD: Again, our guys, you know, their numbers are called, they’re ready to go. You know, certainly, you know, a guy like Lamar, you want him out there, but when he’s not out there, I feel very confident that the guys that are coming in are going to do their part and do their job and, you know, we certainly have a lot of faith in them, so, you know, unfortunately it just didn’t work out the way we wanted it to tonight.
Indiana
Dick Vitale, Charles Barkley team up to broadcast Indiana vs Kentucky
Kentucky basketball’s Mark Pope sees pride-worthy potential in squad
Kentucky basketball coach Mark Pope says he’s done a poor job of getting the competitive spirit out of his team despite a 103-67 win over NC Central.
Basketball icons Dick Vitale and Charles Barkley headline the broadcasting crew for Indiana vs. Kentucky on Saturday, Dec. 13.
Vitale, a longtime ESPN analyst, and Barkley, a Basketball Hall of Famer-turned analyst, are teaming up to call two games this season, with the first coming between a pair of blue bloods in a nonconference matchup. Dave O’Brien will handle play-by-play duties.
Vitale and Barkley will broadcast together for the second time this season during TNT and CBS Sports’ First Four coverage of the men’s NCAA Tournament in March.
Watch Dick Vitale, Charles Barkley call Indiana vs. Kentucky live with Fubo (free trial)
The humorous duo will be appointment viewing for many college basketball fans, as both are known for their larger-their-life personalities. The team-up became possible after TNT lost its broadcasting rights for NBA games, moving TNT’s “Inside the NBA” to ESPN.
Vitale is returning to regular broadcasting in 2025 after battling multiple forms of cancer since 2021. He has called over 1,000 games for ESPN since joining the network in 1979.
Barkley, an 11-time NBA All-Star, averaged 22.1 points and 11.7 rebounds across his 16-year career. He was drafted No. 5 overall out of Auburn in the 1984 NBA Draft.
How to watch Indiana vs Kentucky today with Dick Vitale, Charles Barkley
Indiana-Kentucky will air live on ESPN, with streaming options available on the ESPN app or Fubo, which offers a free trial.
Indiana vs Kentucky time today
- Time: 7:30 p.m. ET
- Date: Saturday, Dec. 13
- Location: Rupp Arena (Lexington, Kentucky)
Indiana vs. Kentucky is set for a 7:30 p.m. ET tipoff on Saturday, Dec. 13, from Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky.
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