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Tyrese Haliburton Did Something Cool for Pacers Fan Heckled in NYC After Knicks’ Win

Kristen Wong

Screengrab on Twitter/ @PatMcAfeeShow
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Indiana Pacers fan Hans Perez has had a rollercoaster of a week so far.

Days after Perez was seen getting heckled and bullied by New York Knicks fans near Madison Square Garden following the Knicks' Eastern Conference semifinal series win over the Boston Celtics, he received a special message from Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton himself.

On Monday's episode of the Pat McAfee Show, Haliburton surprised Perez with a sweet gesture in the wake of his classy reaction to the New York mob.

Haliburton told Perez he was going to fly him out to Indy for Game 4 of the conference finals against the Knicks, where Perez would get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet the team.

"I want to personally bring you and a plus one out here to come to Game 4 here in Indiana," Haliburton said. "I'll bring you guys out here, put you guys up, get you guys tickets to the game. Everybody in the organization wants to make sure you're taken care of. The whole team's excited to meet you—it's all we've been talking about, everybody's seen the video."

So awesome.

Perez found himself caught in a mob of unruly Knicks fans after New York's Game 6 win on Friday night, as a now-viral video showed the fans following him down the streets of Manhattan and throwing bags of trash at him. Perez, who was donning a Haliburton jersey at the time, told Pat McAfee he tried his best to calmly walk away from the crowd and didn't want to do anything to escalate the situation.

With that scary encounter behind him, Perez is set to have the time of his life with Haliburton and the Pacers, who are chasing their first-ever NBA title. Kudos to Haliburton for reaching out and making something sweet out of Perez's misfortune.

Game 1 of the Pacers-Knicks series is on Wednesday at MSG.

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Kristen Wong
KRISTEN WONG

Kristen Wong is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020. Before joining SI in November 2023, Wong covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL Network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. Outside of work, she has dreams of running her own sporty dive bar.

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