Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton to miss time with left hamstring strain

Indiana Pacers All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton has suffered a mild left hamstring strain and will miss at least two weeks recovering, head coach Rick Carlisle said on Wednesday afternoon.

Haliburton is being considered week-to-week, though an update isn't expected for at least two weeks. A clearer timeline for his return is not yet known.

Haliburton has had issues with that left hamstring before. He strained it while slipping on a drive to the basket during a game against the Boston Celtics in January of 2024 , costing him 10 games; he'd manage that injury for the rest of the regular season, before re-aggravating it during the Eastern Conference finals against Boston four months later. The following season, he left a January contest against the Cleveland Cavaliers early with left hamstring tightness , and missed the Pacers' following game, too.

The 26-year-old point guard missed all of the 2025-26 regular season after rupturing his right Achilles tendon during Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals . He played in the Pacers' first four games of the 2026-27 campaign, and is averaging 21.8 points, 9.5 assists and 4.5 rebounds in 33 minutes per game, shooting 51.6% from the field, 37% from 3-point range and 86.7% from the free-throw line.

After an emotional return to the lineup in a win over the New Orleans Pelicans, Haliburton appeared to be fully back in the fold for a Pacers team that had looked all but bereft without him last season. He put up 20-and-10 double-doubles in two of his first three games back, leading Indiana to wins in New Orleans and Brooklyn.

Haliburton pressed to play in the second half of Indiana's first back-to-back set of the season, when the Pacers traveled to his native Wisconsin to take on the rival Milwaukee Bucks. He logged a season-high 35 minutes in the Pacers' 110-102 loss ; he was seen wearing a heating pad on his left hamstring while seated on the Indiana bench.

After the back-to-back, Haliburton had been listed as questionable for the Pacers' Wednesday game against the Philadelphia 76ers with left hamstring tightness/soreness — one of eight Indiana players on the injury report , and the third dealing specifically with a hamstring ailment, joining Aaron Nesmith and T.J. McConnell, who has yet to play this season.

The Pacers will be without Haliburton, McConnell, starting center Ivica Zubac (left ankle sprain) and reserve wings Ben Sheppard and Johnny Furphy against Philly on Wednesday. Guard Andrew Nembhard (neck soreness) is also listed as questionable.

Amid this spate of early-season injuries, Indiana has opened the season 2-2, with the NBA's No. 16 offense and No. 14 defense . The Pacers have outscored opponents by four points per 100 non-garbage-time possessions with Haliburton on the floor , and have been outscored by 7.4 points-per-100 with him off it — the largest on-off swing on the team . Some of that stems from the other absences up and down the roster, most notably to backup point guard McConnell; some of it, though, highlights just how central and critical a figure Haliburton is to Indiana's chances of success.

The early woes call to mind the raft of injuries that Indiana suffered at the start of the 2024-25 season, contributing to a rocky start that saw Haliburton and Co. sitting at 10-15 in early December. Once the Pacers got healthy, though, they took off, blossoming into one of the NBA's best teams on both ends of the floor and eventually making it all the way to Game 7 of the Finals. This year's model will hope to follow in its predecessors' footsteps, with Pascal Siakam and the reserve corps holding down the fort until the ailing bodies — and specifically Haliburton's — can get back to full strength and full speed.

Haliburton is the latest in a string of stars to suffer injuries in the early days of this NBA season, joining the likes of Anthony Edwards , Jaren Jackson Jr. , Kawhi Leonard , Jalen Williams , Jalen Duren and Paolo Banchero .