This is a nice analysis and defense of Haliburton by Howard Beck. The frustrating thing, though, isn’t that Haliburton isn’t morphing into Kobe. It’s that Haliburton doesn’t realize how good he is even just playing within himself.

The dude can drive by nearly anyone, and nothing but good things happen when he gets to the basket. He also has a great jump shot! Yet in this series, on the rare occasion when he does get to the basket, he doesn’t even look up—he looks backwards and side-to-side, desperate for escape hatches. He’s admirably selfless and assist-first in mindset, but he needs to look to Isiah Thomas as the model: don’t always get yours first, but make the defense afraid of you; that aggression will lead to teammates' baskets before long. Yes, sometimes wait to take over till the fourth quarter; but sometimes your team needs you to lead with offense when nobody’s got it going.

Haliburton is such a fun, unique, and brilliant player; I don’t doubt he’ll figure it out. But if he could figure it out now, before Wednesday, he might have himself a chance at a ring at age twenty-five.