After his battle in the NBA bubble, LA Clippers security guard Paul George said he had to come back “with vengeance” this season to address the fact that “people saw weakness” in him.
A highly motivated George continued his scorching start to the season by making 8 of 14 shots and scoring 26 runs to lead the Clippers to a 138-100 defeat of the Sacramento Kings in Golden 1 Center on Friday night.
“I’ll be back with a vengeance,” George said of his thinking going into this season after he and the Clippers blew a 3-1 second-round lead over Denver last postseason. “I didn’t like it, not so much of the noise and everything around it [the way last season ended], but only the fact that people saw weakness.
And I had to tackle that. I had to answer that. That fed me. That brought me to a place where I wanted to come back and be myself again. ‘
George told teammates entering the season that he would return to form that helped him finish third in MVP voting during the 2018/19 season in Oklahoma City.
“P is currently playing at a high level,” said Clippers forward Marcus Morris Sr. “Which we all knew he would do. I feel like he has an MVP season. And he told us before the year started, he was coming with it.”
George shoots career heights of 50.3% from the field, 51.5% from 3-point range, and 91.8% from the free-throw line. He made 4 of the 8 3-pointers against the Kings. George has made four or more threes in 10 of his 12 games this season.
George said he had told his teammates he would return to his MVP form this season because he had no other choice.
“After the difficult year last year, that was the only way I could respond,” said George. “I went straight to a dark place where I just, I had nothing but to get better. That was all I thought about and the only thing was to get better.
“Nearly two years away from the surgery on my shoulders … So I’m just in a healthier state of mind, I’m in a healthier place.”
Last season, George struggled with two shoulder surgeries after the 2018/19 season. During the NBA reboot in the bubble, George suffered the worst shootout he’d experienced in the playoffs, hitting 10-for-47 in Games 2, 3 and 4, including missing 21 of 25 tries from behind the 3-point line. , in the first round against Dallas.
George admitted that in the bubble in Orlando, Florida, he had experienced periods of depression and anxiety because he was unable to be with his family and loved ones. Then the Clippers dropped to the Nuggets in the second round.
While George and Kawhi Leonard only shot 10-for-38 together and scored a total of 24 runs in their Game 7 defeat, George was the one who got a ton of heat from critics. His three-point attempt at a corner hitting the side of the board in the fourth quarter symbolized the Clippers’ meltdown.
Not only was George toasted on social media, but he even heard garbage talk this season from opponents like Phoenix’s Chris Paul and Devin Booker during a game on Jan. 3 when George and the two Suns guards exchanged words. George said he heard “a lot of chirping and people just living in the past”.
George has chosen to let his game do the talking, averaging 25.3 points, 6.1 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 1.3 steals to go along with his best shooting rates of his career.
“He was able to exercise this summer,” said Leonard. “Last summer he was limited, he could probably only take 10 photos a day with his shoulder surgeries. He comes out with determination and is focused.”
“I can’t predict the future,” Leonard added if he saw this coming when the two trained in the off-season. “But all I could say was that he put his thoughts into his work, and when I started training with him, a lot of his stuff was like some kind of game simulated, trying to pass, reading and just getting it translated.”