Paul George Shines as Celtics Dominate 76ers in NBA Recap

The other guy in the trade, we told you this yesterday, the forgotten man, Paul George, ripped his former team. 36 points. He hit six threes. He shot six of 11. He was awesome. I mean, Paul George has been awesome this year for the Boston Celtics. Joel Embiid's quote after the game is pathetic and typical, but he called Paul George Boston's best player. Saying Paul George is the Celtics' best player. No, he's not, okay? He's not their best. I get it. You guys in Philadelphia, you can't handle Jason Tatum. I understand you got to go for the troll job and you need the X clicks and you want the attention. That's what this roster is all about. And we talked about it yesterday that if things go south in Philadelphia, it can blow up because of the personalities that they have inside that roster. When they're winning, everyone's going to be good. But if they lose and if they get beat by a team like Boston or a team like OKC or somebody else, if they go on a long losing streak at any point during this season, Joel Embiid can't help himself. He just runs his mouth and says all sorts of things are just unnecessary. LeBron's like, what do I care? These kids are ridiculous. My legacy is good. I'm playing here. I'm having some fun. I'm living in New York now. I love this. I'm taking helicopters back and forth. I'm all good. You guys go figure it out. Nick Nurse, this is your problem. Maxey and Edgecomb are unbelievable. I mean, they're really good. But if you play a team. That hits threes and you're playing three on two, which is what happened last night. Boston was hitting threes all over the place and the Sixers are driving and they're scoring two points and they're still going down, down, down because Boston goes up there and hits five threes in six possessions. And all of a sudden you're like, uh, we were down five. Now we're down 12. This is not good. A lead can explode very quickly when you play the Celtics. Now. Has Boston been a surprise? Well, yes, because Paul George at 36 years of age looks like a guy playing at 26 right now. And he was asked in the postgame on NBC, and he was in a great mood. He was asked about the way that Joe Mazzulla is using him. And he said, look, I figured out that, and he goes, this is not a knock to how I was used in Philadelphia, but the higher usage rate that I have with Boston is agreeing with me. And he is, he's getting more shots, he's getting more minutes, he's getting the opportunity to get in a rhythm quicker, and he's a bigger part of the offense. You have Jason Tatum and Paul George, he's the number two option in the offense, and Joe Mazzulla is using him as a spot-up three-point shooter, and so far, so good. We talked about it yesterday, about the way he's shooting, he's hitting 42, 43% of his threes. That's a career high for Paul George. So while everyone was so caught up Jason and Jalen, as I talked about yesterday, the forgotten man was the guy in the trade for Jalen Brown and Paul George and how much Philadelphia celebrated him being sent out because he only played about 80 games in two years. He got suspended for the PED. He got hurt. All the things that went into Paul George's Philadelphia tenure. It was not a good fit. It was a bad match. And now with Boston. The role fits him, the organization fits him, the coaching style fits him, the front office fits him, even Brad Stevens wanted Paul George. They identified him as a better fit for Jason Tatum than Jalen Brown. Older, more experienced, but a guy who clearly has something to prove this season and worked very hard, and he was asked by Vince Carter after the game on NBC, are you going to be able to keep this up? You know, you've played 10 games so far. You know, you've got a bunch of basketball left to go. Are you going to be able to keep this up and be healthy? And he said he feels awesome and that he had worked really hard all summer long to get ready for this season. So, I mean, I think there's a lot of fun stuff going on right now in that locker room for Boston. And I think Paul George has a lot to do with it. Peyton Pritchard, after the game, talked about the chemistry in the locker room, and he didn't say anything about Jalen Brown. But he talked about the chemistry, about everybody wants everyone else to do well, that everyone's going to go out there and they want Jason Tatum to go kill it. And they want Paul George to go shine. And they want everyone to go and get theirs. It's not a direct shot at Jalen Brown, but it kind of is. Because if you remember what happened last year, Jalen Brown was number one in the NBA in turnovers. He was a problem. When the ball went, it was his team, right? Remember what he said? My favorite year was last year when it was my team and Jason Tatum was not there. That was my favorite year. I wonder if you ask everybody in that room today about what last year was like and you told them, hey, no consequences, just go ahead and answer it honestly. I think we all would be amazed at the number of people that would go, last year was all about Jalen Brown. That was his team. You know why we blew big leads? You know why we failed in crunch time? You know why we blew the lead to Philadelphia? All the things that happened, well, that was a lot to do with the fact that we just really didn't have it.