Twelve months ago, Tyrese Haliburton was on the Gainbridge Fieldhouse hardwood, grabbing at his lower leg in the first quarter of Game 7. The Indiana Pacers’ franchise point guard had torn his right Achilles tendon — the injury every basketball player dreads, the one that has ended careers and rewritten others. The Oklahoma City Thunder closed out the series that night, winning their first title since relocating from Seattle. Haliburton’s season was over. His next season was in doubt.
Now a highlight clip is making the rounds showing Haliburton pulling out the Eastbay — the between-the-legs dunk that’s pure showmanship, the kind of thing you do when your body trusts itself again. For a player who tore an Achilles exactly one year prior, that trust is the whole story.
The 2025 NBA Finals were the Pacers’ first in 25 years and the first Finals Game 7 since 2016. Haliburton had authored the signature moment of the series — a game-winning jumper with 0.3 seconds left in Game 1 — and Indiana pushed the 68-win Thunder to the limit before falling in seven. The Achilles tear in Game 7 was the cruelest possible ending: a franchise cornerstone going down in the biggest game of his life, on the biggest stage the league offers.
Achilles recoveries are not created equal. Kevin Durant returned from a ruptured Achilles in 551 days and averaged 29.9 points upon return. DeMarcus Cousins came back in 357 days and was never quite the same player. John Wall’s rupture effectively ended his prime. The typical timeline for full basketball activity sits somewhere between nine and twelve months, but “full activity” and “throwing down a between-the-legs dunk in traffic” are different planets.
Haliburton was already building a reputation as one of the league’s most resilient players before the injury. The Pacers started the 2024–25 season 10–15, with Haliburton openly struggling through what he called personal off-court problems. Indiana went 52–21 the rest of the way, ripping through Milwaukee, Cleveland, and New York in the playoffs — five 15-point comebacks, an NBA postseason record — before running into the Thunder’s buzzsaw. Haliburton earned his second straight All-NBA Third Team selection and led the Pacers to heights the franchise hadn’t seen since the Reggie Miller era.
The Eastbay dunk in the clip isn’t just a highlight. It’s a medical milestone wearing sneakers. If Haliburton is already comfortable enough to load that right leg, elevate, and swing the ball between his legs mid-air — a movement that demands explosive calf power, ankle stability, and total confidence in the repaired tendon — then the Pacers’ 2025–26 ceiling just got a lot more interesting.
Indiana proved last season they can win without Haliburton at his absolute peak. With him back and apparently explosive, they’re a problem for everyone in the East again.
