“We were going home if we didn’t come out and give everything we have and leave it all out on the floor.” That was T.J. McConnell’s promise after Game 6. And in the biggest game of his life, with a championship on the line, he did exactly that. The problem? For a long, painful, and frankly embarrassing stretch of the second half of Game 7, it felt like he was the only one.

The air went out of the building just seven minutes in. That’s when Tyrese Haliburton, the heart and soul of this entire improbable run, went down in a heap. It was a non-contact injury, the kind that makes your stomach drop. He drove, planted, and his right leg just gave out. As he was carried off the floor, emotional and hiding his face in a towel, the devastating report from ESPN came down: a suspected Achilles injury. The engine was gone. The dream was on life support.

For a while, they fought. They scrapped. They hung around. But in the third quarter, as the Thunder started to pull away, the Pacers’ beautiful offense completely fell apart. The free-flowing ball movement that got them here? Gone. The confident three-point shooting? Vanished. After Myles Turner hit a three-pointer with 8:32 left in the third quarter, the well went completely dry. The offense devolved into a painful, predictable, iso-heavy mess.

And then came the stretch that will live in Indiana sports infamy. As John Hollinger of The Athletic pointed out, a Pascal Siakam basket late in the fourth was the first field goal made by a Pacer not named T.J. McConnell in thirteen minutes. Let that sink in. For thirteen minutes of a do-or-die Game 7, the entire Indiana offense was a 6’1″ backup point guard, desperately trying to keep the season alive by himself while his teammates seemed content to watch. It was a shocking, embarrassing, and complete betrayal of the “we over me” mantra that had defined their entire season.

And as the final minutes ticked away, the dream died a slow, painful death. The Thunder’s defense squeezed the life out of the Pacers. Indiana managed just 39 points in the entire second half. Every possession was a struggle. With the game slipping away, the Pacers got sloppy, fouling unnecessarily and turning the ball over. A late steal by Lu Dort on Andrew Nembhard felt like the final nail in the coffin.

In the end, it wasn’t even close. The Thunder closed out the game 103-91, and as the confetti rained down in Oklahoma City, the Pacers were left to reckon with a historic collapse on the biggest stage. The improbable run, the “we over me” identity, the underdog story that had captivated the league—it all ended not with a bang.

“If I can walk, I want to play”: The tragic end to Haliburton’s heroic stand

The most heartbreaking part of the Pacers’ Game 7 collapse is how it all fell apart. It wasn’t a slow decline, it was a sudden, catastrophic event centered around the one player who willed them to this moment. After gutting out a win in Game 6 on a strained calf, Tyrese Haliburton made his intentions for the finale perfectly clear. “I’ll be ready to go for Game 7,” he promised. He had already told the world his mentality after the initial injury in Game 5: “If I can walk, then I want to play.” It was a warrior’s mentality, a leader pushing all his chips to the center of the table for one last game.

And for the first seven minutes of Game 7, it looked like his bet was going to pay off in the most spectacular way. He was brilliant. He came out firing, hitting three deep three-pointers and scoring 9 quick points. He was setting the tone, playing with a confidence that seemed to silence the roaring OKC crowd. He looked more than ready.

But that’s the cruel reality of sports. Haliburton knew the risk. Playing on a strained calf is a dangerous gamble, one where the worst-case scenario is always a more severe injury. He did everything he could—the round-the-clock treatments, the hyperbaric chambers—to give himself a chance, but turns out, it wasn’t his day.

And as Pacers fans tried to process the heartbreak, one of their most famous and passionate supporters, Pat McAfee, captured the mood perfectly. “Thank you @Pacers,” he wrote on X. “This season was a lot of fun.”

McAfee’s message wasn’t just about one game; it was about the entire, improbable journey. “Nobody, outside of Indy, expected s— from this team,” he wrote. “So when they stumbled out of the gates, everybody wrote them off.. then the All Star break came and went and all of a sudden, DON’T LOOK NOW, The Pacers became the hottest team in basketball.” He’s right. This was a team that was counted out, overlooked, and even had their own star player voted “most overrated” in a player poll. And yet, as McAfee put it, “they showed up in the biggest moments EVERY DAMN TIME (except for tonight.. obviously).”

And maybe that’s what hurts the most. They showed up in every big moment — until the one that mattered most. Not because they didn’t care. Not because they weren’t ready. But because the player who was always ready, the one who made Indiana believe again, had nothing left to give. Haliburton gave them everything. And in doing so, he gave this city a reason to dream again. That dream may be over for now — but the belief he built? That’s not going anywhere.