East Notes: Pacers, Tyrese Haliburton, Magic, Celtics

Pacers

Guard Tyrese Haliburton buried a game-winner against the Bulls with 2.7 left on Sunday, and said it was an opportunity he didn’t want to pass up.

“Against Boston (a Feb. 23 loss) I had a shot with four seconds and I didn’t take it until the buzzer and took a bad shot, so I shot the first one I saw,” Haliburton told reporters. “It felt good.”

Needless to say, coach Rick Carlisle was pleased.

“Tyrese just hit a hellacious shot at the end,” Carlisle said, via Dustin Dopirak of the Indianapolis Star. “That guy’s having some kind of year.”

• Haliburton and center Myles Turner are providing the Pacers with quite the one-two punch, wrote Alex Kennedy of Basketball News.

Magic

Guard Jalen Suggs implied the officiating made it somewhat difficult to defend Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard, who scored 41 points in a Portland win on Sunday.

“He shot 20 free throws tonight. It just kind of makes it hard to guard him,’ Suggs told reporters. “When he shoots 20 free throws by himself, it’s kind of hard to stop him from having a huge night.”

• After a mini-slump in February, center/forward Paolo Banchero is running away with Rookie of the Year, wrote Philip Rossman-Reich of FanSided.
• Blazers coach Chauncey Billups offered high praise for Banchero. “I’m impressed every time I see him play,” Billups said, via Jeremy Brener of SI.com. “He seems to have a ton of confidence out there and he scores at all three levels. … He’s just kind of a matchup nightmare.”

Celtics

• Coach Joe Mazzulla said that center Robert Williams will miss at least 7-10 days with a strained left hamstring. But it wouldn’t be a big surprise if the Celtics shut him down until the playoffs, wrote Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe.
• It may not hurt for the Celtics to take a look at the free agent market and seek some help up front, Washburn wrote. 
• The list of available big men includes the likes of LaMarcus Aldridge, Dwight Howard, DeMarcus Cousins, Derrick Favors, Hassan Whiteside, Moses Brown, Tristan Thompson, and Serge Ibaka, Washburn noted.