INDIANAPOLIS – Tyrese Haliburton had 18 of Indiana’s franchise-record 50 assists, and the Pacers beat the Atlanta Hawks 150-116 on Friday night for their sixth consecutive win.
Haliburton, the NBA assists leader at 12.8 per game, also had 10 points and eight rebounds in just over 25 minutes. Miles Turner led Indiana with 27 points, Benedict Mathurin had 18, Bruce Brown had 17 and Aaron Nesmith had 15 points.
“The assist numbers are tremendous and obviously the record of an NBA and ABA franchise is really strong and shows the unselfishness of the team,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “It’s something worth celebrating. But there’s little time for celebration in this league. So we’ve got to go to our beds tonight and rest for Boston (Saturday). This is really the biggest test in basketball right now.”
Indiana, the NBA’s highest-scoring team, reached 150 points against the Hawks for the second time this season after setting a league season high in a 157–152 win in Atlanta on November 21.
This marked his third game with 150 points overall, one less than the rest of the NBA and one less than tying the 1971–72 Los Angeles Lakers and 1978–79 San Antonio Spurs for most in a season.
“I liked the way we played,” Carlisle said. “We brought an element of physicality that needed to be there and we managed to avoid fouls and that helped our defense.”
Haliburton again played a big role in the victory.
This marked his 11th consecutive game with more than 10 assists, the longest streak in franchise history and the longest streak by any player since Russell Westbrook (also 11 games) in 2019. And it was his 10th game with at least 15 assists this season, the most in a season in franchise history and the most by any player since Westbrook in 2020-21 (14).
Haliburton said he developed a great partnership with Turner, who made 10 of 14 shots.
“I think we have one of the best pick-and-roll pairings in the league, that’s something we can continue to build on,” Haliburton said.
Turner said the team has a lot of fun together on the court.
“There’s a different energy around this group,” Turner said. “We’ve created an environment here that makes it easy to have a night like this.”
The Hawks certainly weren’t having much fun.
“Sometimes there are games where you didn’t play well and we didn’t,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said. “I don’t know that we did anything at the level required to win against these guys on the road. They’re obviously playing well and they made it tough for us. We just didn’t have that tonight.”
Snyder said the Hawks allowed too many easy baskets to the Pacers.
“We need to rush back and be aggressive against these guys in the transition period that started early,” Snyder said.
Dejounte Murray led the Hawks with 30 points. Trae Young missed his first seven shots and finished with 13 points on 4 of 18 shooting. He was 1 of 11 from 3-point range.
The Pacers were forced to play without Andrew Nembhard for the second straight game because of a back soreness.
Information from The Associated Press and ESPN stats and information was used in this report.
