Tyrese Haliburton is back, and I don’t need the qualifier “for preseason” anymore. In three exhibition games he scored 48 points on 19-of-36 shooting, made 8 of his 15 threes and handed out 15 assists in 54 minutes, per the ESPN box scores.
The Pacers’ problem going into Wednesday’s opener in New Orleans is everything that happens after he sits down. Indiana won the first half in each of its last two preseason games. The second-half lineups lost the rest of both games, and the three players best equipped to fix that (T.J. McConnell, Jarace Walker and starter Aaron Nesmith) were all out on Friday.
The starters look like a playoff group
Start with the good news, because there’s a lot of it. In the last two exhibition games, Indiana played Haliburton, Pascal Siakam and Ivica Zubac only in the first half. Indiana led Oklahoma City 61-59 at halftime on Tuesday and Milwaukee 71-56 on Friday. That’s plus-17 across two halves against a Thunder team with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander active and a Bucks team that kept its own starters in for the third quarter.
Friday was the cleanest look yet. Siakam scored 24 points on 8-of-10 shooting, 22 of them in the second quarter, and finished plus-23 in 21 minutes. Andrew Nembhard was plus-21 with 11 points and seven assists. Zubac had 11 points and 11 rebounds, his second straight first-half double-double after a 13-and-13 night in Oklahoma City.
The Haliburton and Zubac partnership is the part I’d circle. Zubac never shared the floor with Haliburton last season, because Haliburton missed all of 2025-26 while Indiana went 19-63, per Basketball Reference. In Oklahoma City, five of the eight assists the two of them recorded went to each other, according to the team’s game rewind. Carlisle praised Zubac’s screening after that game, and acting head coach Lloyd Pierce said on Friday that the two “have a great rapport already in the pick-and-roll.”
Haliburton’s health also held up. He missed the first home preseason game, against Atlanta on Oct. 10, with what Carlisle called “a mild tweak of his right ankle,” and an MRI came back clean. He then played the next two games. On Friday he and Milwaukee’s Ryan Rollins drew offsetting technicals 75 seconds in after a shove, and Haliburton answered with a three over Rollins on the next trip. Carlisle’s line after Oklahoma City summed up the week: “He just came and played his game, and he was Tyrese Haliburton.”
Then the second half happens
Here’s the other side of those two games. After halftime (overtime included), Indiana was outscored 55-51 in Oklahoma City and 72-56 against Milwaukee. That’s minus-20 after Haliburton, Siakam and Zubac sat, and two overtime losses. The Pacers finished 1-3 and plus-6 overall.
I wouldn’t read the final scores too hard. Late in both games the floor was full of two-way and Exhibit 10 players. Jalen Slawson and Braden Smith are on two-way deals, and Keba Keita and Rienk Mast signed Exhibit 10 contracts. That’s what preseason fourth quarters are for.
The worry is the group that opened the second half on Friday, because most of it will play real minutes. Quenton Jackson, Ben Sheppard, Kobe Brown, Obi Toppin and Jay Huff started the third quarter, and Milwaukee’s Tyler Herro scored 16 points in that period alone, per the team’s game rewind. Jackson finished minus-14, as did Sheppard and Huff. Huff went 0-for-6 from three.
Sheppard is the name that concerns me most. He went 0-for-7 with zero points over the last two games in 39 minutes, including a start in Oklahoma City. Toppin was the exception: 12 points, seven rebounds and 4-of-7 from three in 18 minutes on Friday.
The turnovers tell the same story. Indiana gave it away 23 times on Friday to Milwaukee’s 16, per the ESPN box score. Smith had seven assists and four turnovers running the second unit. Carlisle flagged turnovers, fouling and rebounding after the Atlanta loss, and I don’t think a week fixed it.
The fix is three players who sat
This is why I’m not panicking. The three players who would fix this bench barely played, or didn’t play at all.
McConnell, the backup point guard who has run Indiana’s second unit for years, did not play in any of the four preseason games. The team has listed the reason as undisclosed. Walker played the first two games and filled the box score: 17 points, 12 rebounds and 13 assists in 48 minutes, per the ESPN box scores. He then sat the last two, resting in Oklahoma City and missing Friday with what the team called a sore left hip. Nesmith scored 19 on 7-of-9 shooting in the opener at Iowa State, rested in Oklahoma City and missed Friday with a left hamstring strain, according to the team’s game rewind. Johnny Furphy will start the season out while he finishes rehab from the right ACL he tore in February.
Nesmith started both games he played, and Kelly Oubre Jr. started in his place on Friday. Get Nesmith back and Oubre, who came off the bench in the opener at Iowa State, can return to the second unit. Add McConnell and Walker next to Toppin, and the second unit has a real point guard, a playmaking forward and a starting-caliber wing. Without them, Indiana is leaning on Jackson and Smith to run the offense and on Sheppard to make shots he hasn’t been making. Our Pacers roster page lays out the full depth chart.
Haliburton said it plainly on Friday: “We’re going to be one of the best offensive teams in the league with our personnel. We’ve just got to be better defensively.” I agree with the first half of that. The starters are good enough to win most of the minutes they play.
What I’ll watch Wednesday in New Orleans, and again in Friday’s home opener against Dallas, is whether McConnell is in uniform. If he is, the bench problem shrinks to a Sheppard problem. If he isn’t, Carlisle will have to lean on Haliburton’s minutes earlier than anyone planned, and the stretches when Haliburton sits will decide a lot of Indiana’s early games.