Tyrese Haliburton’s no-show Game 5 leaves Pacers on the ropes

Tyrese Haliburton came up small on the big stage.

The Pacers star turned invisible when they needed him most, in a desultory 121-91 second-round Game 5 loss to the Knicks.

The All-Star failed as both an offensive engine and a team leader.

“We’ve got to do a better job of coming together as a group. … [We got] a little frenzied,” Haliburton said. “Obviously, the Garden has a great environment … but we’ve got to do a better job of coming together as a group. We kind of split in the first quarter, and then never really responded the right way. We need to do a better job coming together as a group and that starts with me as the leader.”

After excelling the prior three games, Haliburton had just 13 points and five assists, his minus-22 by far the worst of any Indiana starter.

“I’ve just got to do a better job of being aggressive,” Haliburton said. “I think we go back to Game 1, I said the same thing after Game 1. It’s more on me than it is on what anybody else is doing. So I’ll fix that next game.