You wouldn’t normally mention Tyrese Haliburton and Don Nelson in the same sentence.
Haliburton, the willowy Indiana Pacers guard, was recently derided by his peers as the most overrated player in the NBA (a designation that now seems silly, given the way he has played in the playoffs).
Nelson was one of the more underrated (and innovative) head coaches in his day, after a 14-year playing career in which he earned five rings as a role-playing Celtics forward.
But they now share this: Each made the oddest-looking clutch shot in league history, matching off-the-back-rim, bounce-impossibly-high and drop-through-the-net jumpers that either lifted or propelled their teams to big victories.
Haliburton, as if engaging in a secret game of “Horse” 56 years in the making, echoed Nelson Wednesday night when he fired from the top of the circle with the Pacers down two in the waning seconds of regulation in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Knicks. After the ball followed its wayward path and dropped in, the first thought was that it was a game-winning 3-pointer, but alas Haliburton had a toe on the line. The game, which New York led by 17 with 6:26 left, 14 with 2:51 remaining and nine with 58.8 seconds to play, was tied.
(Also – Haliburton made the choke sign afterward. Not a fan of that, even though it was an apparent homage to long-ago Pacers guard Reggie Miller, who was seated courtside in his guise as a TNT analyst.)
The Pacers then did something in the extra session that a great many teams do not do in a tight spot: They ran offense, as opposed to playing iso-ball. Haliburton shoveled a pass to Andrew Nembhard for a layup. Nembhard found Obi Toppin for a dunk (on which a foul went uncalled against Mikal Bridges). And Indiana prevailed, 138-135.
Amazing game. But no better than Game 7 of the 1969 Finals, when Nelson made his decisive shot (albeit from the foul line) to knock off the Lakers, 108-106. Like Haliburton’s Pacers, Nelson’s Celtics were on the road. Unlike Haliburton, Nelson was a complementary piece on a team led by Bill Russell (in his final season) and John Havlicek.
Nelson played through 1976, then got into coaching. He spent 31 years as a head coach, and was one of the first practitioners of small-ball. Did it, notably, in Milwaukee, where he had a bunch of terrific perimeter guys (shoutout Sidney Moncrief) but often lacked an effective center (shoutout Paul Mokeski). Did it with the Run TMC Warriors.
So in a lot of ways, Nelson set the stage for the modern NBA. And without knowing it, he set the stage for Tyrese Haliburton, too. Who would have guessed?