Tyrese Haliburton Thinks That The Full Court Press Will Be The Next NBA Trend
Oct 17, 2025
Tyrese Haliburton has a brilliant mind for basketball. In the same way that he sees plays materializing before they happen on the court, he appears to have a gift as well for predicting tactical moves that will become popular across the league.
Appearing on Thursday’s episode of “The Kevin O’Connor Show,” the Indiana Pacers point guard shared his insights from NBA teams heading into the 2025-26 campaign. According to Haliburton, a defensive tactic employed by the Pacers may very well catch fire in the near future.
“I’ve seen a lot of teams talking in the preseason this year about picking up full-court [more often],” Haliburton told host Kevin O’Connor. “Which is something that I feel like we, as a group, really brought to the playoffs last year…I think you’re going to see a lot more full-court pressure from many teams in the league.”
Acknowledging the Pacers’ role in possibly setting a new trend, O’Connor went on to crunch the numbers. According to his stats, Haliburton’s team led all NBA playoff teams in picking up their opponents full-court, averaging 36.4 backcourt pickups in the 2025 postseason.
O’Connor also pointed to the fact that, aside from the Pacers, NBA playoff teams have been utilizing the full-court press more frequently compared to 10 years ago. In the 2016 playoffs, teams averaged just 15.4 backcourt pickups; this past season, that number more than doubled to 39.4.
When O’Connor asked Haliburton to explain what’s driving this trend on the defensive end, the two-time All-Star cited the teachings of his Pacers head coach, Rick Carlisle. “Coach always talked about being able to wear out teams for 48 minutes. If it doesn’t affect them in the first quarter, or the second quarter, or the third quarter, we’ll get their legs by the fourth.”
While the full-court press is more frequently seen at the high school and college levels, this tactic supposedly loses its appeal at the pro ranks. The presumption is that professional competitors are so fast, so smart, and so effective at ball handling that backcourt pickups are weighed down by the risk of easy baskets early in the shot clock.
Still, there’s no denying that the Pacers’ toughness on the defensive end last season can be partly attributed to their well-timed full-court pressure. Even as Haliburton recovers from his Achilles injury this season, he may very well watch one NBA team after another increase its time spent in a full-court press.
