NBA mismatch: Fine six-millimetre line between the top and rock bottom

The Achilles tendon is the thickest tendon in the human body. And despite its ability to resist large tensile forces, it's tear-prone, especially among athletes.

It's approximately six millimetres wide in the area where it usually tears, 2-6 cm above an insertion on the heel bone, and sometimes those six millimetres represent a fine line between the top and the bottom.

Six millimetres - a diameter of a pea or bean seed, width of a pencil lead or marker line, thickness of a small tortilla or biscuit - and yet, it can make a gigantic difference.

NBA mismatch: (Torn) Achilles' heel & curse of #0

Last season, seven NBA players tore their Achilles tendons, but - even though the competition of Damian Lillard and Jayson Tatum is quite harsh - everyone will tell you the award for the most painful tear should go to Tyrese Haliburton. Of course, the physical pain is very similar in most cases, but the suffering Hali's injury caused is incomparable to the rest.

At the same time, everyone will tell you that the Indiana Pacers played the most beautiful basketball in the previous NBA campaign, that Rick Carlisle was a magician who made a mediocre team a title contender, and that it was incredible to have a team with evenly distributed points among its members in the era of superstars and leaders.

Only Kobe could walk like Kobe...

With 50 wins and 32 losses, the Pacers were fourth in the Eastern Conference at the end of the regular season. The Milwaukee Bucks and Cleveland Cavaliers were easy tasks in the First Round of the playoffs and Conference semi-finals, as Carlisle's crew brushed both rivals 4-1.

The New York Knicks fought back a little harder in the East Final, but it was enough for just one more win that each of Indiana's previous victims recorded - 4-2.

And then the NBA Finals and the ultimate challenge were on the menu.

On their road to the trophy series, the Pacers' rivals, the Oklahoma City Thunder, topped the Western Conference with only 14 defeats, crushed the Memphis Grizzlies 4-0, survived a calvary against the Denver Nuggets (4-3), and easily eliminated the Minnesota Timberwolves 4-1.

However, the Indianapolis crew wasn't ready to give up. Despite being heavy underdogs, the Pacers managed to "steal" the first game in Oklahoma and later on "save a match point" at home, forcing Game 7.

Moreover, they were 2-1 up in the series and had a ten-point lead heading into the last quarter of Game 4, but the Thunder pulled through and avoided a defeat that would have likely meant the end of their NBA title dreams.

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Either way, Game 7 was scheduled for June 23 at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma. The public expected a spectacle, but got the live broadcast of Indiana's tragedy.

Seven minutes into the game - having previously scored nine out of his team's 16 points - Tyrese Haliburton made a sudden move forward, fell on the court, and started pounding his fist on the floor.

He couldn't stand up, he couldn't walk, his Achilles tendon was torn. It was clear that he was done. And so were the Pacers' dreams of their first-ever NBA Championship. They fought, but failed, while Hali was set to miss the entire 2025/2026 campaign.

As if losing NBA title wasn't sad enough: Haliburton to miss entire next season

And without the injured point guard, everything went south. Indiana are currently sitting at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings with only one win in ten games in the new season, alongside the Brooklyn Nets and Washington Wizards, while no Western Conference team is worse than the trio. They've suffered five straight defeats, and it seems there's no way out of the crisis.

Less than five months ago, the Pacers were one win away from glory, and now they couldn't be further from it. The gap between these two extremes is six millimetres wide.