Game 2 of the NBA Finals was a tale of two stars.

While Shai Gilgeous-Alexander lived up to his MVP form in his Oklahoma City Thunder’s 123-107 win, Tyrese Haliburton turned in a conspicuously quiet performance for the Indiana Pacers.

Haliburton managed only five points on 2-of-7 shooting with four assists through three quarters, after which the Pacers trailed 93-74.

“I’ve had two really poor first halves,” Haliburton said. “I’ve just gotta figure out how to be better earlier in games. Kudos to them, they’re a great defensive team, but I’ll watch the film and see where I can get better.”

The Thunder boast the NBA’s stoutest defense, and they’ve found success by throwing multiple defenders — including Lu Dort, Cason Wallace and Jalen Williams — at the play-making Haliburton.

With the series tied 1-1, Haliburton is averaging 15.5 points and 6.0 assists per game — down from the 21.0 points and 10.5 assists that the point guard averaged against the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference finals.

Perhaps even more tellingly, Haliburton’s uncharacteristic 4.0 turnovers per game in the Finals are more than twice the 1.7 he averaged in the previous round.

“They’ve got a lot of different guys who can guard the ball, fly around,” Haliburton said of the Thunder. “They’re really physical. Forced the officials to let us play a little bit more. Just got to do a better job of playing through there.”

Haliburton scored only 10 points on nine shot attempts in the first three quarters of Game 1, though he finished as the hero in Indiana’s 111-110 victory with a game-winning jumper with 0.3 seconds remaining.

In Game 2, Haliburton finally got going with 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting in the fourth quarter, but it was too little, too late in a game that was already out of reach. He finished with a team-high 17 points but had five turnovers and six assists.

“We had some success there, me playing off the pitch a little bit more, flying around, rather than if I’m in that high ball screen, which I feel like I am really successful at, that gives them a chance to really load up, pack the paint,” Haliburton said.

“They got a couple steals in there. I had some really dumb turnovers tonight. They were kind of showing a soft blitz, sometimes a full blitz,” he said.

Haliburton was hardly the only Pacer to have a rough Game 2. Pascal Siakam shot 3 of 11 and finished with a plus/minus of -15, while Andrew Nembhard — Gilgeous-Alexander’s primary defender — was a game-worst -17.

The Pacers finished with only 34 points in the paint as Oklahoma City forced them into 3-point attempts, where they finished 14 of 40 (35.0%).

“People shouldn’t just look at [Haliburton’s] points and assists and judge how he played, or judge how any of our guys played, just on that,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said.

“That’s not how our team is built. We’re an ecosystem that has to function together. And stats, we’ve got to score enough points to win the game, but who gets them and how they get them is not important,” he said.

But Haliburton is the Pacers’ engine, and he was significantly outplayed by the game’s other big-name point guard in Gilgeous-Alexander, who scored an efficient 34 points with eight assists.

Haliburton went scoreless and without an assist in the second quarter, during which the Thunder unleashed a decisive 19-2 run.

The series now shifts to Indiana, where Game 3 is scheduled for Wednesday night.

“Any time you’re a lower seed in a playoff series, your job is to go try to get one on the road,” Haliburton said.

“We got Game 1. Felt like we really let the rope slip there in the second quarter. There’s many different ways that you can choose to digest what’s in front of you. We focus on taking it a day at a time. You got the split. You feel good about that. But we definitely wanted to play better tonight.”

____

©2025 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.