Clockwise from bottom left, Thunder forward Chet Holmgren, Indiana Pacers forward Pascal Siakam and Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton battle for a rebound during the second half of Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday in Oklahoma City. (AP photo)

INDIANAPOLIS — Given the way Indiana guard Tyrese Haliburton was limping on his way out of the postgame news conference after Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday night, it’s safe to assume he’s a fan of the schedule right about now.

Put simply, he could use a couple of days off — at least.

Haliburton has a lower leg injury — nobody’s saying exactly what it is, whether it’s ankle or calf or something else — and it seems to be the sort that if this were a back-to-back situation in December, he’d be missing at least one game. But these are the finals, this is June, there no back-to-backs in the playoffs and when the league gets to the last series two-day breaks between games aren’t uncommon.

Amen to that, the Pacers are probably saying right about now with Game 6 not until Thursday night in Indianapolis.

“The Finals, the NBA Finals, is one of the great stages in all of sports,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “And so, it shouldn’t happen quickly and abruptly. It should happen at the right pace and the right tempo, and the space in between games does help player health. That’s a very important aspect of it.”

There was a one-day gap between games in this year’s finals just once, separating Games 3 and 4 in Indianapolis. Everything else has seen a two-day gap, as will be the case going into Game 6. And if the Pacers win to force a Game 7 back in Oklahoma City, that’ll be preceded by another two days off going into an ultimate game on Sunday night.

It should be noted that the Thunder don’t mind the schedule being drawn out, either.

“We recover,” Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault said. “The finals are great because you get extra time in between the games. I think that’s huge in terms of rest and recovery at this time of the year. I think it’s good for the product. I think it’s a good thing and by the time the ball goes up in the air, everybody is going to be ready to play and everybody is going to be excited.”

Even those who aren’t dealing with an injury seem to be welcoming the two-day gaps between finals games.

“It’s a lot of games. It’s tiring, for sure,” Thunder star and league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “But every game is tiring. When you’re giving your all, every possession, you’re going to be tired. I don’t think I’m the only one out there that is tired.”

It wasn’t always like this.

The first NBA Finals were in 1947, before the league was called the NBA (it was the Basketball Association of America then) and before the title round was called the finals (after being called the BAA Finals in the early years, it was called the NBA World Championship Series until the mid-1980s).

That first year, Philadelphia and Chicago played five games in seven days. It would be unthinkable to play at that pace now; the NBA, for much of the last decade, hasn’t even scheduled stretches like that in the regular season.

The finals between Minneapolis and New York did the same thing — five games, seven days — in 1953.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba