Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton's heroics in NBA Finals haunt Kings fans

Jason Anderson, The Sacramento Bee on Jun 6, 2025

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Sacramento Kings haven’t played a game in more than seven weeks, but they seem to take another loss every time Tyrese Haliburton leads the Indiana Pacers to victory.

Haliburton did it again Thursday, hitting a game-winning jumper with 0.3 seconds remaining to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder, 111-110, in Game 1 of the NBA Finals at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City.

Haliburton’s heroics drove another dagger into the hearts of Kings fans, many of whom are still agonizing over the February 2022 trade that sent Haliburton to Indiana in exchange for Domantas Sabonis.

Sabonis joined forces with De’Aaron Fox to help the Kings end their 16-year playoff drought in 2023, but they lost in the play-in tournament the past two years and traded Fox to the San Antonio Spurs in February. Meanwhile, Haliburton has emerged as a star, garnering two All-Star and All-NBA Third Team selections while leading the Pacers to back-to-back Eastern Conference finals and now the NBA Finals.

The Pacers trailed the Thunder by 15 in the fourth quarter before outscoring the Thunder 32-16 over the final 9:27. Haliburton has made four game-tying or go-ahead shots in the final five seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime this postseason.

Some Kings fans took to social media to express their feelings following Thursday’s game.

X user royal_montana tweeted: “Haliburton is truly breaking my heart as a Kings fan. If Pacers & Spurs meet in the finals next year I might be put in a psych ward.”

Philosafiyya had a similar thought: “Gonna really hurt when it’s a Pacers vs Spurs finals, and Kings fans gotta watch Fox vs Haliburton.”

Many are criticizing the Kings for choosing Fox over Haliburton when they traded for Sabonis, but that thinking requires some revisionist history. At the time, sources told The Sacramento Bee the Kings first discussed a deal involving Fox, but the Pacers preferred Haliburton, who was earning $4 million in the second year of his rookie contract while Fox was making $28.1 million.

Serg2cold tweeted: “The Kings had Haliburton and Fox and got rid of both of them.”

VoyagerAFK tweeted: “Sacramento Kings fumbled so hard by trading HALIBURTON.”

X user 222sally tweeted: “My god we Sac Kings fans are CURSED. We get rid of Haliburton and he has killed it in the Playoffs, and won the game in a massive come back.”

Jcheap12 offered a different perspective, tweeting: “Can Kings fans stop with this Haliburton crap? The trade was 3 years ago, gave the Kings a legendary season, and there’s no guarantee Hali would have become the player he is in Sacramento. Let’s just enjoy his finals run for gods sake.”