Tyrese Haliburton ruled out for the next three games — and how his upcoming max contract hinges on games played

Haliburton has been sidelined for nine games this season and will miss another three this week. What Rick Carlisle said about the injury and why games played impacts his All-NBA eligibility.

The Indiana Pacers will be without All-Star guard Tyrese Haliburton at least for the next three games — home games against Denver, Philadelphia and Phoenix. He is recovering from a Grade 1 left hamstring strain sustained on Jan. 8 against Boston.

Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle announced the news during his regular Tuesday morning appearance on “The Wake Up Call With KB & Andy” on 107.5 The Fan.

“Tyrese came back for the Portland game, did well in the game, but our training staff wasn’t comfortable with how he responded to that,” he said. “We’re gonna sit him for the next three games.

“This is not a re-injury. This is just simply injury recovery management type stuff.”

Haliburton not only returned against Portland last Friday, less than two weeks from the injury occurring, but he also played 35 minutes. And you could see, both with his play and his facial expressions, that he wasn’t completely comfortable.

But he was feeling better and set on returning as soon as possible.

“I should be back in a couple days,” he said two days before his return. “I dodged a big injury so God is good. God is good for sure. Just trying to get back and help the team.”

Now he’ll miss more time, though the Pacers have avoided putting a timeline on his return — both then and now.

Athletic trainer Jeff Stotts said on the Fieldhouse Files podcast that, according to his NBA injury database, the average missed time for a Grade 1 hamstring strain is five games or about 13 days. Haliburton returned on Day 11.

“Keep in mind that the hamstring is not one muscle, it’s a muscle complex,” Stotts said. “So it’s multiple muscles that work together. The strain that Haliburton has is likely in one of those muscle groups — they (the team) did not specify that. And that’s where this gets a little bit tricky, in terms of comparing (to other players) because often times it’s just listed as a hamstring strain.

“… The Grade 1 injury means that the fibers of the muscle involved are intact, so there was no tearing of the true muscle fibers. Now likely what happened is, based on the mechanism of the injury that splits action, the fibers that make up the muscle were overstretched but stayed intact.”

The Pacers (24-19) have lost four of the last five games and dropped to seventh in the Eastern Conference standings — behind New York and Miami.

When he returns, and staying healthy enough to continue to be in the lineup each game, is huge to Haliburton for more than basketball reasons.