Once upon a time, Tracy McGrady seemed like the coolest athlete in the world for throwing himself a lob off the backcourt for a thunderous dunk in the NBA All-Star Game. More than two decades later, the self-oop off the glass has become one of the hottest plays of the 2023-2024 season. Anthony Edwards pulled off the move, so did Joel Embiid, and Donovan Mitchell did it, too.
Tyrese Haliburton played 4D chess with backboard alley-oop to himself to set up teammate
Only Tyrese Haliburton could pull this off.
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
On Saturday against the New York Knicks, Tyrese Haliburton put his own unique spin on the self-lob off the backboard. The Pacers genius did a step through towards the basket, threw a hard chest pass off the backboard to himself, caught it in mid-air and threw a pass to the corner, where teammate Pascal Siakam knocked down the wide open three. This was an incredible display of creativity and problem-solving that only Haliburton could pull off.
The Pacers beat the Knicks, 125-111. Watch Haliburton’s amazing assist here.
Haliburton has been one the breakout stars of the season as he’s led the Pacers to the most efficient offense in league history. He’s also been a brilliant passer, but his improvements as a driver and pull-up shooter has made him basically impossible to defender.
Think Siakam likes playing with Haliburton? The two-time All-Star was sent from the Toronto Raptors to Pacers a few weeks before the deadline in the biggest trade of 2024. No one was making next-level passes like that to Siakam in Toronto, that’s for sure.
If the season ended today, we’d get another chapter of the Pacers-Milwaukee Bucks rivalry in the first round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs. Sign us up for that. Basketball is more fun with Haliburton involved.
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