Can a Struggling Paul George Turn Around His Season

Paul George has shot 37.7% in his last 25 games, including 32.6% from 3-point range. Can he fix himself?

Paul George was arguably the second best basketball player on the planet in November.

He won the Eastern Conference player of the Month award as the Indiana Pacers went 9-2 over 30 days. On the day he received the honor, he was posting per-game averages of 27.1 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 4.4 assists for the year. He was shooting 45.3%, including a remarkable 45.9% from behind the arc while hitting 3.3 triples each night, and getting to the line 7.6 times per game.

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Other than known-alien Steph Curry, nobody else was balling out like this. Paul George was shooting like Dirk in the midrange and Kyle Korver from deep — and doing so while playing defense like Kawhi.

It didn’t last though.

Not long after, Paul George fell off. From December 12 to today, PG-13’s output has been more like Friday the 13th: horror show.

He has shot an embarrassing 37.7% in his last 25 games, including a dreadful 32.6% from 3-point range. Despite this, he has still been hoisting 7.1 triples per game over this stretch and only getting to the line 6.2 times per game. He has been driving less and taking a larger percentage of his shots from long range even while shooting poorly.

His per-game averages are way down across the board — just 20.1 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 3.4 assists each night — and even his defense has slipped some. To be sure, this means he is more like a third-team All-Defense caliber wing as opposed to first team, but offensive struggles began miring his whole on-court presence and leading to more possessions spent arguing with the refs than doing the hard work to get good shots. He started settling for inefficient looks more, and as his make rate on tough jumpers inevitably tailed off he was unable to adjust. He just kept pulling up expecting off balance and contested shots to go in like they had been in November. They haven’t and he hasn’t adjusted.

It hasn’t been enjoyable to watch, and while the six-week statistical output of Paul George isn’t in and of itself world-changing, his team has been struggling badly as well.

The Indiana Pacers are 11-14 over their past 25 games and have fallen to eighth place in the Eastern Conference. At first, the struggle seemed explainable. There were a few crunch-time calls that the league later admitted went against the Pacers. Then there were a few late-game collapses. They also played the Warriors twice — and nobody is going to beat Golden State.

Eventually, the blown leads seemed to take their toll on the squad psychologically, however, and now it’s as if the team freezes up in second halves, routinely going scoreless for comically long stretches.

There is no other way to see it: The Indiana Pacers are not a good team anymore.

The evidence for them being good is that they have built so many large leads during games, but what good is going on big runs if you can’t sustain high-level play for 48 minutes?

The Pacers of November, led by the Hall of Fame-level performance of Paul George, played like one of the five or six best teams in the NBA. The Pacers since December 12 have been mediocre at best and often outright bad. Before a win against the Hawks on Thursday, they were 1-6 in their prior seven games, collapsing against a team like the Nuggets and getting steamrolled by the likes of the Kings and Wizards.

For Paul George, however, there have been signs of improvement.

He admitted that his legs have been tired of late, and this is understandable for a player who missed basically a whole year and is trying to readjust to the rigors of an 82-game season. His coach Frank Vogel said he believes fatigue has ben a factor in his star’s tailspin and noted that the coaching staff needed to “keep an eye” on PG’s minutes.

Whether he is finding a way to maintain his energy better or this is just a coincidence is hard to say. But for six quarters, starting after half time against the Kings and lasting throughout the next game back home against the Clippers, George looked great.

Can a Struggling Paul George Turn Around His Season?

By Jared Wade | Jan 30, 2016

Paul George has shot 37.7% in his last 25 games, including 32.6% from 3-point range. Can he fix himself?

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