Halliburton's performance in the critical moments this year is a historical level
Since the NBA entered the era of live playback in the 1996-97 season, LeBron James has made the most shots to equalize or overtake the score in the last three seconds of regular playoffs or overtime, reaching eight times. Besides that, before the 2025 playoffs, no one has more than four times in the past 30 years.
Well, after Friday's game, Terrys Halliburton made four such shots in the 2025 playoffs alone. Halliburton has now made at least one such shot in every round of the series this year, in Game 5 against the Milwaukee Bucks, Game 2 against the Cleveland Cavaliers and Game 1 against the New York Knicks. In the era of instant playback, no other player, including James, has been able to hit such a shot at least once in every playoff round of his career. Michael Jordan did it before the real-time playback era, but he did not complete this achievement until the 1997 NBA Finals, his penultimate playoff journey.
Halliburton did what Jordan did in his entire career in one playoffs, and it was also an achievement that James has not yet accomplished in his 22 NBA seasons. This can't help but beg the very simple question: Is Tyreth Halliburton currently experiencing the greatest critical ball playoff journey in NBA history? The answer
ultimately depends on your definition. If you only measure performance in the last few seconds, Halliburton is a far-reaching winner based on what we discussed above. If the time window is slightly expanded, the answer may still be the same - Halliburton hit 6 equalizers or overtakes in the last 90 seconds of the game this year's playoffs, which is also the most in the real-time playback era. The
Inpredictable website has a statistics called "Victory Contribution Value at Key Moments". Simply put, it measures how much extra win a player contributes to the team at a critical moment during a specific period. Halliburton's key shots contributed about 2.48 wins for the Pacers during this year's playoffs. Who is ranked second in the era of instant replay? It was James, who contributed 1.86 games in 2013. Since the 1996-97 season, no one has been able to meet the value Halliburton has created through shooting at critical moments this year's playoffs.
If you want to try to reflect this value in the win or loss of the game, then look at statistics expert Mika Adams's statistics on four games where Halliburton made these key goals.
The lowest winning rate per game:
The first game against the Thunder: 3.0%
The first game against the Knicks: 0.3%
The second game against the Cavaliers: 2.1%
The fifth game against the Bucks: 0.7%
It is obvious that the Pacers ended up winning all four games, and if they calculate their probability of winning all four games based on their winning rate in each game, the probability of winning all four games is about one in 75 million.
Let's simplify this problem. The NBA has its official definition of "critical moments": the fourth quarter or the last five minutes of overtime, and the score difference is within five points. The Pacers played nine key games that were officially defined this year, and they won eight of them. This puts the Pacers in key games at 88.9%. This is the highest winning rate for a key game for teams that have played at least nine key games since the real-time playback era.
Of course, now that we have talked about the league’s official definition of “critical moments”, we must admit that performance at critical moments usually involves more than just the last few seconds. If you count the last few minutes, things start to get more complicated. Let’s take a look at Halliburton’s total score at a critical moment this year’s playoffs. He scored 33 points, which was very impressive...but one of the playoff "victims" caused by Halliburton - Jaylen Brunson - scored 56 points.
Halliburton is not the kind of player who is particularly good at swiping personal data. Richard Jefferson joked during the broadcast that his shot was like a “tour date” [1]. Therefore, in terms of scoring, Halliburton will be somewhat inferior to those players with stronger scoring ability. To be fair, however, performance at critical moments is obviously much more complicated than a normal score.
[Translation Note] Taking the performance of the last three games as an example, Halliburton's shooting data are: 6/13, 9/17 and 2/7 respectively. Since neither shots nor hits are very high, it looks like date numbers.
Haliburton's value comes from creating opportunities for teammates and ensuring that someone - if not himself - can get a good chance. Halliburton's assists and turnover ratio this year is as high as 8-1. The Pacers played nearly 89 minutes at critical moments this year and made only three turnovers. Going back to Brunson's example, the Knicks played for nearly 64 minutes at a critical moment, but made 14 mistakes. Halliburton's team will not waste the ball at critical moments. They can always finish shooting.
Therefore, it becomes quite subjective to select the most critical single playoff performance in history. Especially because we only have clear data on critical moments since 1997. "Magics" Johnson, Larry Bird and Jordan as a young man, if we can easily quantify their performance, they will likely occupy an important position in these discussions. Still, here is a short roster from the Age of Live Replay, which includes three seasons:
1998 Michael Jordan: We've mentioned him already. Jordan contributed 76 points, 8 assists, 6 rebounds, 3 steals and 3 blocks for the Chicago Bulls at a critical moment, while the Bulls achieved an 8-6 record in key games. This record itself is not particularly impressive, but it is different based on the background. The Bulls are at the end of their strength: Scotty Pippen is injured and Dennis Rodman is in a state of decline. Everyone knew they were about to disband, but Jordan still led them to the championship.
LeBron James in 2007: Indeed, James did not win the championship this year, but he led a weak lineup to the NBA Finals and defeated the top seed Detroit Pistons during the promotion process. In addition to the 58 points scored at critical moments, James also had an astonishing 14-1 assist and turnover ratio. It is obvious that James has many exciting performances at critical moments in his career, but in 2007, he played the purest critical game in league history. In Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Pistons, James scored 25 points at a critical moment, grabbed the home advantage and eventually led the Cavaliers to the finals.
Diek Nowitzki in 2011: This is probably one of the most perfect playoff key performances in league history. Nowitzki scored 66 points at the critical moment with 54% shooting percentage, 60% three-point shooting percentage and 97% free throw percentage. The Dallas Mavericks achieved a record of 11 wins and 5 losses, with rivals including Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. What is Nowitzki's highest achievement? It was in the critical time of his 49.6 minutes of appearance that the Mavericks had a total of 73 points in the opponent's net victory. The Mavericks won the first and only championship in team history with a miraculous journey, and Nowitzki did it. There are other candidates, but each of them has flaws in some important aspects. Allen Iverson in 2001, Kobe Bryant in 2002, and Kawhi Leonard in 2019 were all unable to make the list because of their slightly insufficient efficiency. Shaquille O'Neal in 2000 could have easily been selected. Some other years of James also missed the list for one reason or another. Stephen Curry made 9 of 16 three-pointers at a critical moment in 2016, which should have made him stand out...but he and the Warriors lost at home in the finals tiebreak, so there was no chance.
Halliburton's personal performance in the playoffs this year is better than those mentioned above. Frankly speaking, as a surprise finalist, Halliburton is already comparable to James in 2007. But when you consider Jordan in 1998 and Nowitzki in 2011, the obvious difference is that they won the championship.
Haliburton is so close to the trophy, which is exciting. He's only three wins away, and he might be able to win them all at home. Haliburton could do this in front of a Thunder with a 68-win regular season record and won the third consecutive round of the process without a home advantage, his resume might be blaming. Yes, Halliburton’s score isn’t as productive as Jordan or Nowitzki, but his overall impact on these games is undeniable.
Pricely speaking, Halliburton is turning those games that are almost bound to lose from mathematical probability into victory. But a greater impact may be invisible. For opponents, such a loss is devastating. They can bring down a team’s morale and can keep opponents slacking off in the subsequent games of the series. Only a few players in NBA history have been able to continue to have this impact on their opponents in the playoffs, and Halliburton may be one of them now.
If Halliburton could really do this—if he could win the championship in this special way as a No. 4 seed—then he played the most decisive playoff performance in NBA history is irrefutable.
Author: Sam Quinn
Translator: GWayNe