Jalen Brunson and Tyrese Haliburton became fast friends as teammates last summer with Team USA, but that will get pushed aside when the two All-Star point guards clash in the Eastern Conference semifinals beginning Monday night at the Garden.
“Great player. Didn’t really know him until — like, I knew of him, we met a couple of times — but we didn’t really become friends until last summer,” Brunson said Saturday. “Great guy, great family. He became one of my friends, obviously through that [experience at the FIBA World Cup], and I have all the respect in the world for him and the way he plays the game. He goes out there and plays the right way and does what he needs to do.”
Haliburton, who was named to the 2024 Olympic roster last month while Brunson was not, registered a career-best 23 assists against the Knicks on Dec. 30.
“Literally the first call I had after we made the playoffs was a FaceTime with Jalen,” Haliburton told reporters Saturday in Indiana. “So we’re pretty good friends, but it’s competition and fully excited to play against those guys.”
With Brunson, Hart and fellow Villanova alum Mikal Bridges on last summer’s FIBA squad, Haliburton joked that he served as “the substitute Donte,” referring to Knicks guard Donte DiVincenzo, another former Wildcat.
“I kind of got roped into that group,” Haliburton said. “It was fun, we have a group chat that we talk in all the time, those are good friends of mine. So I’m excited for all the shenanigans of who Josh Hart is as a human being, and just excited to play against those guys.”
With Haliburton at the helm, the Pacers fittingly played at the second-fastest pace — the number of possessions a team gets per 48 minutes — during the regular season, with the Knicks ranked 30th in the league.
“It [depends] how you would define pace,” Tom Thibodeau said. “I think we were fifth in scoring [in the first round]. I think we’re probably second in fast-break points. Then when you look at total shot attempts, we’re always at the top.
“So it’s however you get there. I told you, you can make stats say whatever you want, but the most important one is the net rating. And so, that’s what we look at. You wanna be strong on offense and defense. I think we were fifth in offensive rating. We’ll be challenged again, and our defense has to be great.”
The Knicks finished fifth in the NBA during the regular season in net rating, which measures point differential per 100 possessions.
Thibodeau said there were no new injuries to report after the first round aside from Julius Randle (shoulder) and Bojan Bogdanovic (foot).