Insider: The Haliburton-Hield Experience brings the Pacers closer together

Tyrese Haliburton was right in the middle of trying to put Buddy Hield and his contributions to the Pacers in perspective Friday night while also maintaining his odd-couple routine with the teammate who's been with him since he began his career in Sacramento. He had to throw some digs in with his compliments because that's just how these two roll.

"I think his personality helps any locker room," Haliburton said. "It's hard not to love being with Buddy. Sometimes he can get on my last nerve. He's annoying. A lot. But what I do appreciate about him is just his love for the game of basketball. I think something I share with him is I don't want to sit games..."

And that's when Hield, fresh off of a season-high 28 points in the Pacers' 121-111 win over the Washington Wizards, burst through the door of the Bob Collins-Wayne Fuson media interview room in the catacombs of Gainbridge Fieldhouse, late for the start of the postgame news conference but determined to make a big entrance.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Hield hollered, apparently not the least bit concerned about interrupting whatever Haliburton had to say.

"That was right on cue," Haliburton said as Hield walked up the stairs to the podium. "I was just talking about you."

Hield composed himself as he took his seat on the podium and asked, "Bad or good?" Haliburton proceeded to tell him both, but then also redirected his answer to the assembled media to explain how their similarities and their bond are part of the reason the Pacers are off to a 14-12 start, defying preseason expectations that had them finishing at the bottom of the Eastern Conference.

"First I started by saying you get on my last nerve sometimes, you're annoying," Haliburton said. "But what I do love about you is your love for the game of basketball. We share that neither of us wants to sit. We want to play as many times as possible. I think that (filters) down to the rest of the organization. We're just trying to build a culture here with guys who want to play every night, want to compete, just love the game of basketball. I think that's what he does."

Haliburton has acknowledged his relationship with Hield wasn't always smooth, which stands to reason because they're completely different humans and players.

Haliburton is a coach's dream. Frankly, he's the dream of anybody in a leadership role in a basketball organization. He's immensely talented but wants nothing more than to use that talent to create opportunities for teammates, which is why he leads the NBA in assists. He has a naturally outgoing personality and ability to connect people, and genius-level knowledge of the game. He's still just 22 and plays with the infectious joy of a young man but the maturity of someone much older, and he's talking about the game on any stage. The Pacers are happy with any opportunity to put him in front of a microphone.

Hield is, well, not that exactly. A week away from turning 30, the former Oklahoma star is in his seventh year in the league, and though he's averaging more than 16 points per game in his career, not all of those seasons have been rosy. By the time he was traded with Haliburton from the Kings, both he and the team were very much ready to part from each other. He's one of the most prolific 3-point shooters of an era that has been defined by the 3, but other parts of his game have been criticized. And he's accessible to media, but he terrifies public relations staff members because he frequently doesn't have a filter. He says what he thinks and if that happens to include inflammatory comments about his former teams or their fans or curse words — up to and including the F-word — on the record, so be it.

Haliburton didn't quite understand Hield when he got to Sacramento as a rookie in 2020, and that was true in senses figurative and literal.

"He'd tell you the first time he saw me, he didn't understand a word I was saying," said Hield, a fast-talking native of The Bahamas with a heavy Caribbean accent.

But being traded together made them closer. Haliburton was in his second season and experiencing the feeling of leaving the franchise that drafted him. He admitted to having an immature reaction. Hield had been traded from New Orleans to Sacramento as a rookie, and he helped him mellow out about it.

"I told him, yo, 'This is the business of basketball,'" Hield said last week when the two returned to Sacramento. "'I got traded my rookie year. Thank God you lasted a year longer than me.'"

And when Haliburton arrived in Indiana, coach Rick Carlisle got him to appreciate and understand Hield both as the player and as a person.

"I loved him off the floor, but on the floor our relationship was a little up and down," Haliburton said in Sacramento. "Didn't really know how we felt about each other on the floor. When we got traded together, that just made us become super close. We were already super close off the floor... Just being around Rick more, he's a fresh perspective on us two. When I got here, Buddy had already had time here in Sac, so the opinions of Buddy were already made up by people here in the organization. Now being with fresh faces, people getting to understand Buddy and me being able to teach some things I know about Buddy to other people helps me understand him better."

Carlisle is one of Hield's most staunch defenders, and Hield has rewarded that loyalty with one of the strongest seasons in his career so far. His 28-point performance on Friday night followed a 26-point outing on Wednesday against the Timberwolves in which he made 7-of-11 3-pointers to help the Pacers rally back from a 23-point deficit to take the lead, though they eventually lost. Prior to that, he had several key 3-pointers at crucial moments to help the Pacers hold on to a road win over the defending champion Golden State Warriors.

Hield ranks third among the Pacers with 17.7 points per game, his 94 3-pointers are second in the NBA only to Stephen Curry, and he's also been more reliable as a positional defender, rebounder and passer than he has for most of his career. And he's given Carlisle everything he could ask for as a 29-year-old veteran on one of the 10 youngest rosters in the NBA.

"We love Buddy," Carlisle said. "He's unapologetic about who he is. He loves the game. He lives in the gym. He's committed to being a better defender especially this year... He's unafraid. You have to have guys like that out there."

Meanwhile, Haliburton has become the face of the franchise and one of the most effective point guards in the NBA. He scored 23 points on 9-of-14 shooting including 3-of-4 from 3-point range with 11 assists against one turnover, and that's a run-of-the-mill performance for him at this point. It was his 15th double-double of the season, which puts him in a tie for second in the NBA with the Lakers' Anthony Davis and the Kings' Domantas Sabonis, for whom Haliburton and Hield were traded, one behind two-time defending MVP Nikola Jokic's league-leading 16. He leads the Pacers with 19.5 points per game and his 11.0 assists are 1.5 ahead of Atlanta's Trae Young for the league lead.

"Tyrese just has a great feel for what the team needs," Carlisle said. "He realizes that he can score when he needs to score, but that we need to have a lot of guys involved. ... When you play that position and you're invested in winning, it's not going to be about the stats. It's going to be what's needed."

Together on the floor, Haliburton and Hield make a brilliant connection. They've connected on more assists for 3-pointers than any other duo in the league. And in the media room Friday night, they were a natural comedy duo, cutting each other up at every possibility.

Hield started messing with Haliburton when the point guard said reserve wing Oshae Brissett, who scored 16 points on Friday, was "seeing the fruits of his labor," acting as if he'd never heard the phrase.

"Fruits of his labor?" Hield asked. "You're going crazy."

"That's English," Haliburton said. "That wasn't even complicated. They must not talk like that in The Bahamas."

"We have our own little culture," Hield said.

"Yeah, my bad," Haliburton said. "To see the outcomes of his hard work."

Later Haliburton chopped down Hield when the wing was asked about his success driving the ball. Hield was 4-of-10 from beyond the arc, but 8-of-9 from inside thanks to some strong moves off the dribble and finishes at the rim.

"My teammates and Ty are putting me in the right spots," Hield said. "Teams are forced to close out pretty hard and just using my shot as a weapon. I lean in and I either have a dump-off or a layup at the rim."

"It's good when he shot fakes and does it," Haliburton said. "But when he takes like four or five dribbles, it's bad."

"My attacking was elite tonight," Hield said. "In the NBA you always have those games when you can do that. But I know my role."

"Please don't write about him getting to the cup," Haliburton said. "You're going to blow his head up."

Immediately after that exchange, Hield was asked about his passing. He had four assists Friday night and Carlisle complimented him on it. Haliburton, who has had as few as four assists just once all season, couldn't even listen to the end of that question before he buried his head in his warm-up shirt.

"It's a love-hate thing you know," Hield said, noticing Haliburton's reaction. "I've been making more of a point to make plays for my teammates. I should've had more assists, but we're not gonna talk about that."

"Four assists?" Haliburton asked. "You're really swinging it."

This, to hear their teammates tell it, is what the Buddy-Tyrese Experience is like on a daily basis. And their cracking on each other helps create the fraternal atmosphere that is helping the Pacers achieve over their projected station.

"All the time," Brissett said. "Practice, on the plane, lunch, dinner, they're always like that. But it's all love. Brotherly love. If those two are like that, it brings the team together and everyone else has to follow."

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pacers vs. Wizards: Bond between Haliburton and Hield pushes Pacers