Haliburton Says He Couldn't Watch Knicks Win NBA Title

The Indiana Pacers guard, who missed the postseason with a torn Achilles, said he believes a healthy Pacers team could have beaten New York.

Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton said watching the New York Knicks win the NBA championship was hard to sit through. Speaking on the Boardroom Podcast's "Boardroom Talks" segment with Speedy, Haliburton said his instinct was to stop watching the celebration altogether.

"When the Knicks won, I thought to myself, 'I've got to turn this ... off. Like, I can't—I can't watch it,'" Haliburton said.

Haliburton missed the postseason while recovering from a torn Achilles. Asked whether the Knicks would still have won the title if he had been healthy, he was direct: "Do I think if I was healthy and we played them, would we win? Of course. I'm an NBA player. I'm a competitor. Anybody else in my situation would say the same thing."

The Pacers and Knicks have met in the playoffs in each of the past two seasons, building one of the league's more familiar recent rivalries. Haliburton's Indiana team fell to New York in the 2025 Eastern Conference Finals.

Despite his confidence, Haliburton stopped short of dismissing what the Knicks accomplished. "What they did in the playoffs was special," he said. "I don't want to demean or put down what that was, because that was crazy."