Tyrese Haliburton’s historic assist bender continues … as does Pacers’ ownership of Bucks

Tyrese Haliburton continues to outdo himself. Less than a week after becoming the third player in history, and the first in three decades, to register consecutive 20-point/20-assist games, Haliburton put up another historic stat line in Indiana’s win over the Bucks on Wednesday with 31 points, 12 assists, three blocks and zero turnovers. 

Throw in five made 3-pointers, and Haliburton is now the first player in history to reach those single-game thresholds. His 76 assists against seven turnovers over his last five games is also an NBA record for ratio.

Take out the five made 3-pointers, and Haliburton is just the second player in history even to register 30 points, 10 assists and three blocks with zero turnovers, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. This marks the third time this season that Haliburton has recorded at least 10 assists with zero turnovers, double the amount any other player has amassed.

The reigning Eastern Conference Player of the Week, Haliburton has carded 66 assists and four turnovers over his last four games. Do the math, and that is an absolutely absurd 16.5-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. 

If the season ended today, Haliburton’s 12.7 assists per game would go down as the fourth-highest mark in history. He leads the league in assist points created and assisted 3-pointers, per PBP Stats. Haliburton has now recorded double-digit assists in 10 straight games and 27 of his 31 games this year. 

Most importantly, the Pacers took down the Bucks … again. Including their In-Season Tournament win, the Pacers are now 4-1 this season against Milwaukee, with which a budding rivalry is clearly developing. 

“I think we’re getting up for these games [vs. Milwaukee],” Haliburton said. “I think as a young group, when you play good teams, you want to be as prepared for them as you can. … It’s interesting, I’ve never played a team this many times this early [in the season]; I think we’ve handled it the right way. You know, the game in Milwaukee got a little chippy, and I thought we responded the right way. There were a lot of things said from both sides. We’ve handled it the right way. 

“The good part about playing the Bucks five times already, we’ve got the Celtics three more times, those are two of the best teams in our conference, so just seeing where we stack up against those guys early has been interesting, and we just want to keep approaching these games the right way.”

If you don’t recall the “chippy” game in Milwaukee that Haliburton is referring to, on Dec. 13 the Bucks got their one win against the Pacers this season, and Giannis Antetokounmpo scored a career-high/franchise-record 64 points. After the game, Giannis wanted the game ball. He thought the Pacers took it to spite him. He went chasing down the tunnel. He was furious. 

Afterward, Pacers coach Rick Carlisle’s story was that Indiana had, indeed, taken the game ball at the buzzer, but it was the reserve ball — and not because the team was trying to steal it from Giannis, but because they wanted it for their rookie, Oscar Tshiebwe, who had scored his first NBA point in the game. 

Giannis did end up with a ball afterward, retrieved by Bucks security, but he was skeptical that it was the actual game ball. 

“I have a ball, but I don’t know if it’s the game ball. It doesn’t feel like a game ball to me,” Antetokounmpo said. “It feels like a brand-new ball. I can tell. I played 35 minutes today. I know how the game ball felt. The ball I have, which I’ll take and I’ll give it to my mom for sure, but I don’t know if it’s actually the game ball.”

So yeah, this is turning into a legitimate rivalry, and it is well within the realm of possibilities that the Pacers and Bucks eventually meet up in a first-round playoff series. Entering play on Thursday, the Pacers, who’ve won five straight after losing six of eight coming out of the IST, are the East’s No. 6 seed, while Milwaukee is No. 2.