The Pacers Won 19 Games Without Tyrese Haliburton. Now Comes the Hard Part

Indiana's gap year is over. That was the message of the past week, as the Pacers' 2026-27 picture came into focus with the Yahoo Sports season preview, a ClutchPoints report that insiders see Indiana winning as many as 50 games, and Tyrese Haliburton back in a gym throwing down eastbay dunks again.

The contrast between where this franchise was two summers ago and where it sits today is stark. The Pacers dragged the Oklahoma City Thunder to a Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals. Then Haliburton went down with the injury that would cost him the entire 2025-26 season, and the bottom fell out: a 19-63 record, a minus-8.0 point differential, 112.4 points per game against 120.4 allowed, and a net rating of minus-7.9 that ranked 26th in the NBA. That is what a contending roster looks like when its engine is removed.

Now the engine is scheduled to return. Haliburton was a 9.2-assist, 18.6-point player over 73 games in his last full season, and it isn't a coincidence that a healthy version of him instantly moves Indiana from the lottery conversation back into the Eastern Conference playoff bracket. The ClutchPoints report framing them as a dark horse and floating a 50-win ceiling is a reasonable read on the top-end talent, and the broader market is similarly split — one sportsbook lists an over/under of 44.5 wins and championship odds around 40-to-1, which is roughly "interesting team, not a favorite."

The supporting cast is why the ceiling is real. Pascal Siakam averaged 23.95 points and 6.6 rebounds across 62 games in a brutal year and still shot 48.4 percent from the floor. Bennedict Mathurin put up 17.6 points a night, though on a 42.98 percent field-goal clip and just 31.5 percent from three — that efficiency is a genuine swing factor. Aaron Nesmith, whose role as Haliburton's pressure-release valve has been a recurring theme in local coverage, logged 13.8 points in 45 games. And Ivica Zubac, acquired from the Clippers at the February deadline, gives Indiana the veteran anchor it lacked after losing Myles Turner: 14.1 points, 10.6 rebounds and 59.8 percent shooting in 48 games, plus a natural pick-and-roll partner for a returning point guard.

The unresolved story is the same one that lingered all summer: depth. Indiana spent part of training camp adding four G-League prospects, a standard move that nonetheless underlined the question of whether this roster has a difference-maker past its top seven. FanSided's Pacers coverage has been consistent on this — top-end talent good enough to contend, back-end talent thin enough to threaten a repeat of last season if injuries stack up. Ben Sheppard and Quenton Jackson are the internal candidates to answer it.

The schedule offers a quick read. Indiana opens the preseason at home against Minnesota on Oct. 7, then hosts Atlanta on Oct. 10 before a trip to Oklahoma City on Oct. 13 — the building where Haliburton reportedly wanted to wait until he could actually play before returning. Milwaukee comes to town Oct. 16, and the regular season opens Oct. 21 in New Orleans.

That's a soft landing for a team that needs one. The Pacers aren't defending a crown this season so much as auditioning for the right to chase one again — and everything hinges on whether the version of Haliburton that shows up in October looks like the one from 2024-25 rather than the one nobody has seen since.