Tyrese Haliburton Returns After 486 Days With 23 Points and 12 Assists in New Orleans

Tyrese Haliburton played a regular-season game on Wednesday for the first time in 486 days, and he treated the night like an entrance. He arrived in New Orleans wearing a custom recreation of the denim jacket Triple H wore for his own injury return in 2002, then finished with 23 points and 12 assists in Indiana’s 123-120 win over the Pelicans, per Reuters’ game report. The Achilles that tore in Game 7 of the 2025 Finals carried a full fourth quarter, a comeback and a scuffle.

Why did he wear that jacket?

Because the reference was the point. Haliburton arrived in a custom denim jacket recreating the one Triple H wore at Madison Square Garden in 2002, when the wrestler returned from a quadriceps injury to one of the loudest crowd reactions in WWE history, Heavy reports. The Pacers shared the arrival photo, and the tribute had been teased earlier in the day in an Instagram video narrated by Triple H himself. Haliburton is a genuine wrestling fan, a playable character in WWE 2K25 who has appeared on WWE programming. A player who had spent 486 days imagining this night chose to walk into it dressed as the most famous injury return in his other sport. Then he had to go and play.

How did he actually play?

Like the rust was a preseason problem, not an opening-night one. Haliburton had a double-double by the third quarter and finished with 23 points and 12 assists, Reuters reports, while Pascal Siakam led Indiana with 30 and Obi Toppin added 20 off the bench. Indiana trailed by ten at half-time, cut the gap to six after three quarters, and took over in the fourth. The night had an edge to it as well: after Indiana closed to 101-100, Haliburton received a technical foul for taunting Pelicans rookie Derik Queen, with players rushing in to separate the pair, Reuters reports. Whatever easing back in was supposed to look like, this was not it.

The return had already survived one fright. In preseason, Haliburton walked off gingerly at half-time of a game against Milwaukee and confirmed afterwards it was knee-to-knee contact and nothing more, in the syndicated game report carried by Yardbarker. Wednesday was the first time the Achilles was asked to carry a full fourth quarter that counted, on the same opening week as Kyrie Irving’s first regular-season game since his own long absence and Kawhi Leonard’s regular-season debut for Toronto.

What did 486 days actually cost?

A season, and a franchise’s shape. Haliburton tore his right Achilles in the first quarter of Game 7 of the 2025 Finals in Oklahoma City, a series Indiana lost, and missed the whole of 2025-26. The Pacers, conference finalists the year he went down, fell to 19-63 without him, the second-worst record in the league. He said before the game that the year away made him think about what life will be like after basketball for the first time, and the Pacers’ own channels carried his line that he does not take this fan base for granted. Wednesday’s postgame account, carried by the New York Post, had him visibly emotional: it means a lot to be back out here.

Why does one night matter this much for Indiana?

Because the Pacers’ whole structure assumes him. Siakam said during preseason that the team has to figure each other out again with Haliburton back on the floor, and Wednesday gave a first answer inside a three-point finish on the road. This site has followed Haliburton through smaller storms before, from a hot-mic night and double technicals to a disputed push-off call in preseason. A technical foul in his first game back fits the pattern of a player who plays loud. The difference this time is what the night was returning from.

What happens next?

Indiana’s next games will show the workload plan: how the minutes are managed early, and whether he sits one side of back-to-backs. His own standard, set Wednesday, is that the Achilles held up through a comeback fourth quarter and an altercation. The jacket is in the photos now. The season can start being about something else.