The warm-up T-shirt would have to wait.

With 10:15 still left in the game and the once 25-point deficit close to being completely crawled out of, Bulls guard Alex Caruso had coaching to do as he was coming out of the game for a quick breather.

With one arm in his sleeve and the other free, he was wildly signaling each of his teammates the defensive assignment from the bench, as well as yelling encouragement in their direction.

In his eyes, the last stand his team needed to make.

Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton had other ideas.

Thanks to one of the better individual performances of the NBA season, Haliburton scored 21 points, handed out 20 assists, and did so without a single turnover, as Indiana withstood the comeback by the home team to dominate late and win 120-104.

“He made a couple tough shots, but besides that he made a lot of great decisions and made the game easier for those guys,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said of Haliburton’s showing. “You’re up in coverage because of the scoring, and then he’s unselfish enough when the guy is rolling, either hitting the roll or throwing it out (for a three).

“There’s no question that when we got up by three (in the fourth quarter), he came back in the game and made some shots there that were big, but it was the spray outs (passes) and stuff. That’s what he does, and he’s elite at that.”

That doesn’t mean the Bulls (14-19) didn’t make Haliburton work for it.

After a Myles Turner free throw with 7:03 left in the third quarter, it was a 25-point deficit and had all the makings of a lost evening.

Enter Dalen Terry.

It wasn’t what Terry did on the offensive end – he only scored a basket in that stint – but his defense, especially on Haliburton, as well as any other opposing player wearing yellow, was next level. He wasn’t alone, either, as a defense that was missing the first 31 minutes of the game finally showed up and then some.

By the time the buzzer sounded for the end of the third, the Bulls’ deficit was down to eight.

While trying to run sprints with Indiana was a fail in the first half, the fourth quarter was a bit different. Yes, they continued to match the visiting team’s pace, but also mixed in some Bulls physicality, getting the basket and the and-ones.

That was on full display with 8:57 left in the game when Patrick Williams went hard to the hoop, made the basket and drew the foul. His free throw cut the Indiana lead to just two, and Coby White erased it on the next possession, hitting from 32 feet out.

“We scored 60 points in the paint (on the night), so we got downhill and played really aggressively,” Donovan said. “We drew fouls, we were at the basket and were taking layups. That’s how we got back in the game.

“I thought our physicality was much better mid-way through that third quarter.”

Game on. Until it was soon turned off.

A three-pointer by Buddy Hield, followed by two more long-range threes from Haliburton, and the brief Bulls lead was on life support.

By the time Haliburton threw a perfect dime to teammate Bennedict Mathurin for the first 20-assist game of the season by a player.

“There were a lot of things we did to get back into the game and get the lead,” Donovan added. “We just didn’t do enough of it.”