3 takeaways from the Pacers’ surprising overtime win over the Celtics

Amid recent Olympic gold medalist Tyrese Haliburton’s shooting woes, the Indiana Pacers’ 2024-25 season got off to a rocky start. But the team appears to have possibly patched things up with a decisive win on Wednesday.

In a rematch in the Eastern Conference finals, Indiana managed to hand the reigning NBA champion Boston Celtics their first loss of the young season, a 135-132 overtime win.

Mathurin has lost rotation time to Jarace Walker and Ben Sheppard in recent games. But he finally had an offensive burst that lived up to his promise against Boston this year. The 6-foot-2 swingman scored a team-high 30 points on 9 of 17 shots from the field (2 of 5 from distance) and 10 of 11 shots from the charity stripe, while also grabbing 11 rebounds and dishing out four Dimes, in a team-best 42:39.

Time will tell if it sticks, but Pacers fans certainly have to hope for it. For Indiana to get where it wants to be, the club needs to improve its performance.

If anyone looks like an All-Star this year, it’s not Haliburton.

Siakam, the Pacers’ starting power forward, scored 29 points on 11 of 20 shooting from the field (plus an astonishing 6 of 8 from 3-point range) and 1 of 4 shooting from charity stripe. while at the same time he tore down 11 boards and handed out five dimes. The 30-year-old New Mexico State averages 20.6 points on .547/.458/.625 shooting splits, 7.6 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 0.8 steals per night.

The 24-year-old Haliburton scored 17 points on a paltry 7-of-19 shooting from the floor (2-of-10 from deep) and 1-of-1 shooting from the charity stripe, but managed to somewhat compensate for his shooting woes with a hectic passing. He provided 12 assists with just one turnover and allowed Mathurin and Siakam to shine as scorers against a talented Boston team.

The 6-foot-5 star point guard had a rocky start to his sixth professional season out of Iowa State. While he’ll certainly be looking to build on back-to-back All-Star appearances and his first All-NBA berth, his offense has been woefully shaky. In his first five games with Los Angeles, he averaged 14.6 points on .346/.250/.667 shooting percentages, 6.6 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 1.4 steals and 0.6 blocks per night.

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