Tyrese Haliburton couldn’t stop thinking about the stinker he put up in Madison Square Garden two weeks earlier in the Pacers’ second game of the 2024-25 season. Zero points. Not a single bucket. The Knicks had their revenge over his Pacers, and he was floundering, the quicksand of doubt pulling him in. His friends and family told him he was fine, to keep shooting through his cold streak. Things would even out. He wanted to listen. He wanted to be grateful and optimistic. But he couldn’t do it anymore. They just didn’t know how much pain he was holding in. “I was really trying to run away from what was going on and I think that point was for me to be like, ‘Yo, I don’t feel like myself. I don’t feel all right. This s—, it’s bad.’” Haliburton told The Athletic in a phone interview last month. “I (was) struggling to look at myself in the mirror. I’m struggling to show up to work and get to the gym. I’m trying to avoid coming to work.”