Tyrese Haliburton’s a bully, not a killer

One of these things is not like the others — and for the Knicks, in that truth does hope exist

Tyrese Haliburton plays basketball like an elf of Rivendell, with preternatural grace and precision. The scenic-route threes that take their time, rising slow as the dawn before setting through the net; his deer-like leaps so light and airy you’d swear his bones were hollow. The Knicks have already faced two terrific leading men this postseason in Cade Cunningham and Jayson Tatum; Haliburton may be the scariest of the three. 

But he’s no killer. 

The conference finals are one game in and already a whole new generation of Knick fans have been traumatized. Welcome, all who are initiated! Your pain and distress is a rite of passage. This is my fifth Knick ECF. I’m not gonna pretend I knew Wednesday’s conference finals opener would end up ending up the way it did, but all night I knew something was coming. Knick conference finals always feature devastation. The basketball gods demand it.

My first was 1993. The Charles Smith series; from 2-0 up to four straight Ls. A year later the Knicks were up 2-0 again, then lost three in a row and trailed in Game 7 before pulling it out in the final seconds. In 1999 they won in Indiana in Game 1 and nearly again in Game 2, with Patrick Ewing missing an astonishingly good look, then being ruled out the rest of the playoffs with a partially torn Achilles.

In the 2000 conference finals the Knicks went out of their way to break their fans’ hearts. They had the lead in the fourth quarter of Game 2 but couldn’t hold it, falling behind 0-2. After tying the series the Knicks led 32-17 after the first quarter in Game 5, a lead they’d surrendered by halftime. At home facing elimination in Game, 6 they trailed by just two going into the fourth, before Reggie Miller erupted for 17, ending the Ewing era with a home loss.

Your eyes may have glazed over those last few paragraphs, especially if those things happened before your time. Devastation goes down way easier when it’s someone else being devastated. Maybe it’s impossible to convey the despair Knicks fans felt when Michael Jordan had them lined up in his sights. Or Miller whenever he had a clean look at a three late in games. Those two were killers.

Haliburton’s no killer.

Killers are scary because everything to them is secondary to the win. MJ verbally abused his teammates, even punched one in the eye. Kobe Bryant was an equal-opportunity shamer, whether Hall of Famers like Shaquille O’Neal and Dwight Howard or salt of the earth Smush Parker. LeBron James has de facto run three different organizations while playing for them in order to maximize his chances at winning. Killers are all about the endgame.

Bullies ain’t.

When a Utah fan in a game in the 1986-87 season heckled Jordan for picking on the Jazz guards, MJ came down the floor the next possession and dunked on the 6-foot-11 Mel Turpin. “He big enough?” Jordan called out to the heckler. Killers back down from nobody and nothing.

They don’t seek drama. Ever. All killers care about is the kill; the last thing they want is attention or drama that might complicate the hunt. In all the years MJ tortured the Knicks, he never once trolled them, not publicly. He hated his enemy far too much to risk giving them any ammo. Bullies will, though. Because for them it’s not about the win. It’s all ego. They antagonize their enemies because bullies subsist on the huffing and puffing of others. But sometimes when a bully thinks they’re gotten someone worked up, they go too far. End up getting worked over by the very person they dismissed as ever rising against them.

Note Haliburton’s history as a troll. He doesn’t say one word about his opponent until the literal second it’s too late for them to respond, then grows so loud it’s like he was vaccinated with a phonograph needle. He copies Dame Lillard’s “Dame Time” celebration when Lillard is out that game injured. He has to publicly rebuke his own father for getting in Giannis Antetokounpo’s face, of course only (immediately) after the Bucks were eliminated. Haliburton hits a game-winner in Cleveland and celebrates like he split the atom rather than eeked out a one-point win over a team missing two starters and a key reserve. The nanosecond his buzzer-beating two two nights ago dropped, his immediate instinct was to grab his throat. The action of a 6-foot-8 child.

Last year he was quiet as a church mouse before Game 7 in New York, pushed to the brink by a team losing so many men Broadway might as well have been the Battle of the Bulge. But there was Tyrese at the postgame presser, rocking a hoodie with Reggie making the choke sign. Jordan buried his enemies alive and fed on their hearts. Haliburton dances on shallow graves, then celebrates with his cornball crew at a Denny’s.

It’s interesting to me that he continues to recycle Miller’s choke sign. Reggie directed that at Spike Lee and the Knicks after the Pacers went up 3-2 in the ‘94 ECF, but it ended up boomeranging: Indiana ended up choking, unable to win Game 6 at home or hold on to the lead down the stretch of Game 7, blowing the series. Haliburton should be mindful of which spirits he channels – it would have been fascinating to hear what he would have had to say if, after taunting the Knicks with the same gesture, only to then learn his shot tied the game rather than winning it, the Pacers had lost in OT. Premature celebration affects some men more than others.

Now, intentionally or accidentally, for once Haliburton’s pushed all his chips to the middle of the table. For once, he has to lead from the front rather than be the leading frontrunner. He’s called out the Knicks, the Garden, the city. That’s not Milwaukee without Giannis or Cleveland with a dinged-up Darius Garland. He’s calling out a Knick team that deservedly defeated the defending champs last round, then led most of the first 45 minutes Wednesday. That’s a killer’s move. Haliburton’s no killer. 

The Knicks feature the coldest killer in the game right now in Jalen Brunson. He struggled with turnovers late in Game 1. But he’s never given his opponent beef, never offered them a lifeline. All Brunson gives his foes is the business. And what of Brunson’s fans? Knick fans? The people who mysteriously made Trae Young public enemy #1 despite him having done them zero harm? What will the Garden sound like when Haliburton has the ball? Will they turn on him the way they did Young? And Miller, back in the day?

You’ll note I didn’t mention the Garden turning on Jordan. Two reasons: one, MJ was always too popular for that, even in New York. Two, you don’t try and bully a killer. But a bully? They don’t like the taste of their own medicine. Their strength is flabby, alleged but unseen, a mushroom nurtured on shit and darkness. The Knicks and their fans need to stand up to the bully tonight. Win this game. Win this series. See how the bully responds after getting hit in the face. They don’t make no hoodies for that.