Tyrese Haliburton ignites closing run for Pacers, who stun Cavs 121-112 in Game 1 of East semis

CLEVELAND (AP) — Tyrese Haliburton hardly resembled the player whose peers have deemed him overrated.

The dynamic Indiana point guard scored 22 points — including a go-ahead 3-pointer midway through the fourth quarter — had 13 assists and made crucial defensive plays that propelled the Pacers to a 121-112 victory over the top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday night in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

“We’re definitely the heavy underdog, but we’re trying to control what we can," said Haliburton, who was voted the NBA's most overrated player in a recent anonymous player survey by The Athletic. "It gives us a lot of momentum for sure, but this is the best team in our conference. They don’t lose much.”

About the only thing Haliburton didn't do well was shoot 3-pointers. On a night when the fourth-seeded Pacers were 19 of 36 from beyond the arc, Haliburton was 2 of 6. But the second one ended up being decisive.

The Cavs went ahead 102-101 on a free throw by Max Strus before Haliburton’s 3 ignited a 15-4 run.

Andrew Nembhard scored 23 points and made two of his five 3-pointers during the four-minute stretch when the Pacers pulled away.

“We had an exceptionally good shot-making night, but the key word is aggression. We’ve got to be in attack mode to beat this team," Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said.

All five Indiana starters scored in double figures. Aaron Nesmith and Pascal Siakam had 17 points apiece.

Haliburton's standout defensive plays included blocking a 3-point attempt by Strus with 2:12 left and converting it into a layup for a 10-point lead. His assists led to 34 points, including eight 3-pointers.

Donovan Mitchell led Cleveland with 33 points and broke Michael Jordan’s NBA playoff record with his eighth straight game of at least 30 points in a series opener.

Evan Mobley added 20 points and 10 rebounds for the Cavaliers, who were without point guard Darius Garland for the third straight playoff game due to a sprained left big toe.

Besides struggling with Indiana’s pace, Cleveland was done in by poor 3-point shooting. The Cavs were second in the NBA during the regular season with 15.9 3s per game, but went 9 of 38. The 23.7% rate was their second-worst of the season.

“We missed a lot of good looks, and then when you miss shots, that’s when they get going in transition,” said Mitchell, who was 1 of 11 on 3-pointers. “The biggest thing is, when the shots aren’t falling, how do you respond? But when a team like this runs like that, it makes it tough.”

Cleveland rarely trailed in its first-round sweep of the Miami Heat that included a 55-point victory in Game 4.

Coach Kenny Atkinson was worried about Indiana's pace coming into the series. He's hoping his team can find ways to control the flow during Game 2 on Tuesday night.

“I don’t feel like we had the rhythm of the game. We have to move forward,” Atkinson said. “The positive is we got accustomed to how they were playing. We’ll figure out the 3-point shooting.”

Indiana had a 12-point lead in the third quarter before Cleveland rallied. The Cavs grabbed the lead in the fourth, but couldn't hang on and close it out.

“I thought we did a good job when that ‘Cavalanche’ was on the way. We did a great job of weathering that," Haliburton said.

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Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell (45) goes to the basket past Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, left, in the second half during Game 1 in the Eastern Conference semifinals of the NBA basketball playoffs Sunday, May 4, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell (45) chews on his jersey late in the second half during Game 1 in the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Indiana Pacers of the NBA basketball playoffs Sunday, May 4, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Cleveland Cavaliers forward De'Andre Hunter (12) falls after Indiana Pacers guard Bennedict Mathurin (00) blocked his shot in the second half during Game 1 in the Eastern Conference semifinals of the NBA basketball playoffs Sunday, May 4, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Cleveland Cavaliers forward Evan Mobley (4) knocks the ball away from Indiana Pacers forward Obi Toppin, right, in the first half of Game 1 in the Eastern Conference semifinals of the NBA basketball playoffs Sunday, May 4, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Indiana Pacers forward Pascal Siakam (43) goes to the basket between Cleveland Cavaliers forward Evan Mobley, left, forward Dean Wade (32) and guard Donovan Mitchell, right, in the first half during Game 1 in the Eastern Conference semifinals of the NBA basketball playoffs Sunday, May 4, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell (45) gestures to the crowd during Game 1 in the Eastern Conference semifinals of the NBA basketball playoffs against the Indiana Pacers Sunday, May 4, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Indiana Pacers forward Pascal Siakam (43) shoots over Cleveland Cavaliers' Donovan Mitchell (45) in the first half during Game 1 in the Eastern Conference semifinals of the NBA basketball playoffs Sunday, May 4, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Indiana Pacers forward Pascal Siakam, center, is fouled by Cleveland Cavaliers guard Sam Merrill, right, in the first half during Game 1 in the Eastern Conference semifinals of the NBA basketball playoffs Sunday, May 4, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Indiana Pacers' Tyrese Haliburton (0) goes to the basket in front of Cleveland Cavaliers' Dean Wade (32) in the first half of Game 1 in the Eastern Conference semifinals of the NBA basketball playoffs Sunday, May 4, 2025, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)