NBA
Tyrese Haliburton Invites Pacers Fan Harassed By Knicks Fans To Game 4
Vivek Jacob is a freelance sports writer with over seven years experience. During this time, he has written for outlets including The Athletic, Yahoo Sports, Sportsnet, CBC, and Complex. Primarily covering the NBA, Vivek also covers tennis, soccer, and cricket.
Get to know Vivek Jacob betterPublished19 May 2025
Indiana Pacers star guard Tyrese Haliburton has invited a fan to Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals after the fan was harassed and abused for wearing his jersey.
A video of New York firefighter Hans Perez went viral showing him getting trash bags hurled at him by New York Knicks fans because he was wearing a Haliburton Pacers jersey. The video doesn’t show Perez provoking those Knicks fans in any way. If anything, he can be seen walking away, trying to deescalate, and asking them to stop.
He was in an extremely difficult position and completely outnumbered. Any kind of provocation could have risked real physical harm from a large crowd of Knicks fans.
Perez was invited to the Pat McAfee Show to discuss his awful experience. While on the show, McAfee surprised him with Haliburton making a special guest appearance.
Tyrese Haliburton is flying out Pacers fan Hanz Perez to a playoff game after he was hit with trash in New York for wearing his jersey 🔥
(Via @PatMcAfeeShow )
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) May 19, 2025
Haliburton’s Amazing Gesture
That’s when Haliburton offered to fly out Perez and a friend to Game 4 between the Pacers and Knicks.
“I wanna 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 seats to the game. The Pacers, everyone in the organization, wants to make sure you’re taken care of. All the team’s excited to meet you. It’s all we’ve been talking about, everyone’s seen the video.
“We wanna bring you out here and I’m really excited about that.”
“I personally wanna bring you and a plus one out to Indiana for game four..
Everybody in our organization wants to make sure that you’re taken care of” ~ @TyHaliburton22 #PMSLive https://t.co/QN7dTplbIw pic.twitter.com/B8y1iqVO02
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) May 19, 2025
Perez mentioned he would have to let the people at his fire house know to make sure he can get the time off. He sounded confident something would be worked out, though.
Game 4 of this series will be Tuesday, May 27 at 8:00 p.m. EST. New York will host the first two games of the series, as it has home-court advantage.
