Paul George has proven his greatness for LA Clippers this postseason
By Melissa Rohlin
FOX Sports NBA Writer
What more does Paul George need to do?
He has lifted the LA Clippers to the NBA Western Conference finals without fellow All-Star Kawhi Leonard. He has kept the series competitive. He has come through time and again.
Yet the narrative remains the same: George chokes under pressure. When the lights are the brightest, he fades. He's a failure.
But the thing is, that just hasn't been true this postseason.
After Leonard suffered a sprained right knee in Game 4 of the Clippers' second-round playoff series against Utah, everyone started writing the team's obituary. But George has put the Clippers on his back, carrying them within two victories of the first NBA Finals appearance in franchise history.
In Game 5 against the Jazz, the day after Leonard's injury was announced, George responded with a 37-point, 16-rebound effort amid the whispers of LA's impending doom, lifting the team to a 3-2 series lead.
In Game 3 of the West finals against the Phoenix Suns, with the Clippers in an 0-2 hole, George had 27 points and 15 rebounds to prevent his team from slipping into an 0-3 deficit — an almost assured playoff death, considering that no team has ever recovered from such a hole.
George's magnum opus came Monday in a potential elimination Game 5 against the Suns, when, with the Clippers down 3-1, he had a playoff-career-high 41 points, 13 rebounds, six assists and three steals to keep his team alive.
But it's as though his repeated brilliant performances are viewed as aberrations. Everyone is anxiously awaiting the train crash, like they're watching an episode of "America's Funniest Home Videos" and knowing the people on-screen are about to fall flat on their faces.
The Clippers are sick of it.
"I don't know where this trolling bulls--- has come from, where the internet controls the narratives about these players," center DeMarcus Cousins said. "It's becoming foolish, man. Like I said earlier in the year, that's one of the most special players to ever lace his shoes up. Give this dude his flowers, man. I don't understand the slander. It's becoming quite silly now. Respect these players, man. Respect these greats."
George seems to receive a disproportionate amount of hate. All it takes is a glance at the other bench to see the unfairness of it.
Chris Paul has never advanced to the NBA Finals in his 16-season career, but he has become a sentimental favorite this postseason. Despite his history of playoff collapses, including blowing a 3-1 series lead with the Clippers against the Houston Rockets in the second round of the playoffs in 2015, Paul has never become a punchline.
In a sense, George put himself in this position.
Back in the spring of 2018, he gave himself the nickname "Playoff P" when he was with the Oklahoma City Thunder, setting himself up for cheap jokes if things went awry. And they did.
George flopped the following three postseasons, highlighted by last year, when he fell apart in the NBA bubble as the Clippers blew a 3-1 series lead against the Denver Nuggets in the second round of the playoffs.
At the time, George acknowledged that he was struggling with depression and anxiety while isolated from family and friends amid a global pandemic, something many other players would later say they dealt with as well. But there was little compassion for George.
Instead, George's nickname was twisted into a cruel, bastardized version: Pandemic P.
It was childish. It was bullying.
George has done everything in his power to shed that image this postseason, but it still plagues him like a scarlet letter, indelibly imprinted on him.
After Game 5, when he should've been spilling over with pride and relief following his superhero performance, he was yet again defending himself.
When asked if he thinks though he receives more criticism than other stars, he didn't hesitate.
"I do," George said. "And it's the honest truth. It's a fact."
He's not wrong.
After he missed two crucial free throws down the stretch in the Clippers' heartbreaking 104-103 loss in Game 2 against the Suns, Clippers coach Tyronn Lue called George after the team plane landed in Los Angeles and said, "We wouldn't be in this position without you."
Mistakes are magnified more for George than they are other NBA stars.
Take Paul for example, again. He shot 26.8% from the field in Games 3 and 4 against the Clippers after missing the first two games because of health and safety protocols. But that was a total non-storyline, a complete non-event. Those poor shooting performances were shrugged off by everyone around him. He hasn't had to answer for them.
George, meanwhile, was mocked all over social media for his mistakes, including those missed free throws. The phrase "Pandemic P" is always one errant shot away from trending on Twitter.
People seem to want to hate George.
Perhaps it's because of the nickname debacle. Perhaps it's because he landed with the Clippers instead of the Lakers. Perhaps it's because his style of play isn't as exciting as the games of Steph Curry or LeBron James. When George goes off for 40 points, for whatever reason, it registers less than when they do.
For George, it's beyond frustrating.
He can't win.
"I am who I am," he said. "I wish I could shoot 80%, 75% on a nightly basis, but it's not realistic. What I can do is do everything else. And so it is what it is.
"They can judge me on what they want to. That part don't matter to me. I'm going to go out there and hoop and give it everything I got."
Throughout these playoffs, George has averaged 27.2 points, 9.7 rebounds and 5.6 assists. Sure, he has off nights. But so does every other superstar.
What differentiates George is that the struggles seem to define him. It's baffling to everyone around him.
"PG has been great for us all year," Lue said. "I just don't understand why it's magnified so much when he doesn't play well."
The question then becomes: What more does Paul George need to do?
While everyone is waiting for him to fall flat on his face, they're missing the greatness playing out in front of theirs.
Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She has previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter @melissarohlin.
