Haliburton to play in Game 6 despite calf strain

INDIANAPOLIS -- Pacers prima Tyrese Haliburton volition play successful Game 6 of the NBA Finals connected Thursday night, manager Rick Carlisle announced.

Haliburton had been a game-time determination aft helium strained his close calf successful Game 5, but the squad enactment him done a spot trial during a squad walkthrough a fewer hours earlier the game, which Carlisle said helium came done well.

"There's nary acceptable minutes limit," Carlisle said anterior to the game. "We volition ticker and show things precise intimately from the opening of the crippled done the entirety of the crippled and we'll spell from there."

The Pacers are trailing the bid 3-2 trying to unit a Game 7, which would beryllium Sunday nighttime successful Oklahoma City. Haliburton had stated helium wanted to bash "everything successful his power" to play successful Thursday's must-win game, which included a wide-range of treatments - hyperbaric chambers, needles, massage, physics stimulation, peculiar portion -- to assistance his strained close calf, a diagnosis that was confirmed by an MRI exam Tuesday.

He had been dealing with a little close limb wounded passim the series, but the calf strain worsened successful Game 5 though helium remained successful the crippled to play 34 minutes. However, Haliburton did not people a tract extremity and tied a playoff vocation debased with 4 points arsenic Indiana dropped the game.

Haliburton is averaging 15.0 points, 7.2 assists and 6.2 rebounds connected 45% shooting done the archetypal 5 games of the series.

"We got a occupation to bash tonight," Carlisle said. "We've got to get acceptable to conflict a squad that has been the champion squad successful the league each twelvemonth long. It's a pugnacious game. It's an elimination game. There's a batch going on."