Tyrese Haliburton posts 1st triple-double, Pacers top Celtics - ESPN

INDIANAPOLIS — After missing Saturday's win over the Miami Heat with an upper respiratory infection, Indiana Pacers superstar Tyrese Haliburton didn't look like himself in the first half of Monday's in-season tournament quarterfinal against the Boston Celtics.

«The first half, I was dead,» Haliburton said later.

So, at halftime, Haliburton — at the behest of the athletic training staff — did something he's never done before: He used an inhaler.

When the second half started, he looked like himself again — and the Pacers looked like a totally different team. Behind Haliburton's first career triple-double — 26 points, 10 rebounds and 13 assists in 40 minutes — Indiana emerged with a 122-112 victory over the heavily favored Celtics to advance to the in-season tournament semifinals in Las Vegas on Thursday.

«It feels good to win,» Haliburton said with a smile, «especially in a game where nobody expected us to.»

The Celtics, who entered the tournament with the NBA's best record, were many people's selection to win all three games this week and claim the first-ever NBA Cup. Instead, they found themselves flying back to Boston early Tuesday morning after an avalanche of plays from Haliburton and a second half left the Celtics searching for answers.

It didn't matter that Boston has the league's best defensive backcourt in Jrue Holiday and Derrick White; all Haliburton did was score or assist on Indiana's first 19 points of the third quarter, and 24 of the first 27 overall. He later buried a ridiculous four-point play on a deep 3-pointer as he was fouled by Jaylen Brown with 1:33 to go that put Indiana ahead for good — just a couple of minutes after he juked Holiday out of his shoes with a ridiculous move and buried a 3-pointer