The unsinkable Pacers don’t need the lead. They just need the last word | Claire de Lune

Indiana didn’t lead for 47 minutes and 59.7 seconds of Thursday’s NBA finals opener. But belief, defiance and Tyrese Haliburton’s dramatic flair made the final 0.3 countThis is why you play the games, as the old adage goes. In recent years, the later rounds of the NBA playoffs – and the finals in particular – have felt rote. They’ve gone chalk. The drama was minimal, even under the brightest lights of the league’s biggest stage. This year has been different: a playoffs filled with suspense, tension and plot twists galore. But at the start of the finals, the scene was set for a regression to the intrigue-less mean. Every roundtable pundit, basketball expert and barbershop patron outside of Indiana state lines had Oklahoma City – basketball’s best team from wire to wire – winning the series easily.But Tyrese Haliburton, the instigator of several of this postseason’s most jaw-dropping twists, knows a thing or two about drama. It oozes out of his pores. And he and his Indiana Pacers had other plans. Continue reading...

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