About

The Haliban is a nickname for NBA player Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers, which is a portmanteau of his last name and the radical Islamic terrorist group, the Taliban. The Haliban meme went viral during the 2025 Eastern Conference Finals in late May and early June of that year. New York Knicks fans humorously likened Haliburton to the Taliban due to the emotion of losing Game 1, which felt like a bomb on New York City, stemming from the storied Knicks-Pacers rivalry. A Photoshop edit of Haliburton as Osama Bin Laden notably stood out from other posts, which mostly surfaced on Twitter / X. The Pacers eventually defeated the Knicks and faced the Oklahoma City (OKC) Thunder in the 2025 NBA Finals. Some humorously called the match-up Haliban vs. ShaISIS, with the latter being a portmanteau of OKC Thunder player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the terrorist group ISIS. When the Pacers won Game 1, some then joked about the Haliban committing the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing as the meme continued spreading online.

Origin

The earliest known post calling Tyrese Haliburton "the Haliban" is a tweet from X^[1] user @NotJeffFoster10 on January 6th, 2023, who wrote, "Haliburton is the Haliban. A terrorist to all defenses." The tweet received no likes. Heading into 2024 and 2025, other non-viral uses of the term surfaced on X.^[2]

The first known viral use of the term was shared by X^[3] user @hoodg3nius on May 21st, 2025, on the day that the New York Knicks lost Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals to the Indiana Pacers. He wrote, "The Haliban just bombed New York 😭😭😭," gaining over 130,000 likes in 16 days (shown below).

Spread

On May 22nd, 2025, X^[4] user @285Slim posted a photoshop of Tyrese Haliburton as Osama Bin Laden, adding a caption about 9/11, which read, "'"A second 3 has hit the towers":https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/a-second-plane-has-hit-the-x,'" gaining over 19,000 likes in 15 days (shown below).

On May 23rd, X^[5] user @RentFreeGrizzly quote-tweeted the original tweet after the NY Knicks lost Game 2 of the 2025 Eastern Conference Finals, attaching George Bush Learning About 9/11 and the Haliburton-Bin Laden edit, gaining over 68,000 likes in two weeks (shown below).

During the same timeframe, similar posts landed on the /r/nbacirclejerk^[6] subreddit.

Haliban vs. ShaISIS

On May 28th, 2025, X^[7] user @wyaajessee tweeted, "Haliban vs. ShaISIS NBA Finals. Who you got and how many games?" after the Indiana Pacers defeated the New York Knicks. The tweet used the Haliburton-Bin Laden edit and a new edit of Oklahoma City Thunder player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as an ISIS leader. The tweet received over 102,000 likes in nine days (shown below).

Oklahoma City Bombing

On June 5th, 2025, X^[8] user @hoodg3nius tweeted, "THE HALIBAN JUST BOMBED OKLAHOMA 😭😭😭," following Game 1 of the 2025 NBA Finals, in which Indiana Pacers player Tyrese Haliburton hit a game-winning shot in the final seconds to clinch the victory.^[10] The tweet received over 40,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Similar posts quickly followed, like a tweet sent by X^[9] user @ThisIsWenki a few minutes later, which showed the infamous photo of the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, captioned, "The Haliban to Oklahoma City," receiving over 59,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

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Search Interest

External References