ESPN writer on Tyrese Haliburton injury: 'I just feel sick about it... I've never felt that way about watching a game before'
ESPN's Brian Windhorst said he felt "sick" watching Tyrese Haliburton on the floor in pain in the first quarter of Game 7 of the NBA Finals and will wonder what if the Pacers star point guard hadn't got hurt.
Would Indianapolis be celebrating the Pacers' first NBA championship without the injury? We'll never know, but the longtime NBA writer said, "I don't know in 23 years if I've ever felt more personally affected by seeing something on the floor..."
Haliburton had hit three 3-pointers midway through the first quarter and looked like he was ready to put the Pacers on his back at Paycom Arena. But Haliburton, who was nursing a strained calf from Game 5, suffered what his dad confirmed was an Achilles injury that will likely require a lengthy absence.
'I feel sick," Windhorst told Scott Van Pelt on 'SportsCenter.' "And I'm not recovered from seeing the slow motion of his calf, and even, they won the game in the third quarter with a classic Thunder run, with turnovers and the flurry and everything. But as the fourth quarter is happening and I'm watching the Thunder go through this dry spell... the Pacers get it down to 10, I'm thinking if they had Haliburton that this is going to go down to it.
"I just feel sick about it... I hate it when anybody puts an asterisk on it because this is a celebration of not only tonight but the entire season, the full build and I really want to put a hard period, then a paragraph. But I don't know in 23 years if I've ever felt more personally affected by seeing something on the floor...
'The (Kevin) Durant injury was terrible. He was a two-time champion. He had gone to the mountain top. Paul George, I was in Vegas that night, I felt horrible about that. He was able to recover. I was in the building this year when (Jayson) Tatum got hurt. I was in the building for all of those. I felt different about this one. This was visceral. In all honesty, the air came out of the building. The Thunder's intensity level dropped.'
Van Pelt added: 'Unless you're a fan in order, the Bucks, the Cavs or the Knicks, then the guy took fans on a joy ride with what he did and I understand if you're fans in Milwaukee, Cleveland or New York, you say, 'Maybe not so much us,' but to love the game, I don't know how you couldn't love the man who did it…'
'Scott, they were ahead at the half," Windhorst responded. "I feel like, first off, I just feel terrible for Tyrese and his family because he knew in that exact moment, you saw, he said, 'No, no, no' because he knew exactly what happened. He looks behind him for the person that kicked him like we see everybody that this happens to, and he knows what happens and he can't believe this risk.
"He was tasting his moment. He's hit three 3-pointers, they've got the lead. He's having the moment of his life, and it comes with the worst moment of his life because the risk that he's taken. And so it's absolutely gutting, and I can't get past it right now. I'm not over it as somebody who watches the game. I have no skin in the game, and I can't get over it right now. The whole rest of the first half, my stomach is in knots. I've never felt that way about watching a game before, so I have a very mixed feeling about this, and I don't want to take anything away from the Thunder. They just need to be celebrated, they deserve to be celebrated.'
"You feel cheated once you got to this stage of the competition that it wasn't all our good vs. all of your good," Van Pelt said.
Windhorst added he's not sure, even if Haliburton hadn't been injured, if the Pacers make it back to the NBA Finals, and that made the injury even more devastating in his eyes. This was their moment, and they had it taken away.
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