After battling the playoffs in the NBA bubble, Los Clippers goalie Paul George said he had to return “in revenge” this season to address the fact that “people saw weakness” in him.
A highly motivated George continued his torrid start to the season by making 8 of 14 shots and scoring 26 points to lead the Clippers to a 138-100 loss to the Sacramento Kings at the Golden 1 Center on Friday night.
“I’ll be back with revenge,” George said of his mindset coming in this season after he and the Clippers won a 3-1 series advantage in the second round in Denver last postseason. “I didn’t like it, not so much the noise or everything around me [the way last season ended], but only the fact that people saw weakness.
“And I had to address it. I had to answer that. That fed me. That put me in a place where I wanted to go back and be myself again.”
George told teammates entering the season that he would return to the form that helped him finish third in the MVP voting during the 2018-19 season while in Oklahoma City.
“P is playing at a high level right now,” Clippers striker Marcus Morris Sr. said. “Which we all knew he would. I feel like I have an MVP season. And he told us that before the year started, I would go with him.”
George throws career highs of 50.3% from the field, 51.5% from 3 points and 91.8% from the free throw line. He made 4 of 8 triples against the Kings. George has scored four or more 3 in 10 of his 12 games this season.
George said he told his teammates he would return to his MVP this season because he had no other choice.
“After last year’s hard year, it was the only way to respond,” George said. “I immediately went straight to a dark place where I was just finishing, I had nothing else to improve on. That was all I thought about and all I could do was improve.
“My shoulders have been operated on for almost two years … So I’m in a healthier mental state, I’m in a healthier place.”
Last season, George struggled when he came out of two shoulder surgeries after the 2018-19 season. During the NBA’s resumption of the bubble, George suffered the worst shooting drop he experienced in the playoffs, going from 10 to 47 combined in Games 2, 3 and 4, including 21 of 25 attempts behind the line. of 3 points. , in the first round against Dallas.
George admitted that he had experienced episodes of depression and anxiety while in the bubble in Orlando, Florida, as he could not be with his family and loved ones. Then the Clippers collapsed in the second round to the Nuggets.
While George and Kawhi Leonard combined to shoot just 10 against 38 and added a combined total of 24 points in their defeat in the seventh game, George was the one who picked up a lot of heat from the critics. His 3-point attempt at the corner that hit the side of the shield in the fourth quarter symbolized the collapse of the Clippers.
George was not only roasted on social media, but even heard trash talking this season about opponents like Chris Paul of Phoenix and Devin Booker during a Jan. 3 game when George and the two Suns guards exchanged words. George said he heard “a lot of breasts and that people only lived in the past.”
George has opted to let his game speak for itself, averaging 25.3 points, 6.1 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 1.3 steals to end his best shooting percentages.
“He was able to exercise this summer,” Leonard said. “Last summer he was limited. He could probably only shoot about ten shots a day with shoulder surgeries. He comes out determined and focused.”
“I can’t predict the future,” Leonard added about whether he saw this coming when the two worked out of season. “But all I could say is that he put his mind to his work and when I went to work with him, a lot of his stuff was like a kind of simulated game, he worked on the passes, he reads and it had just practically been translated. “