George closed the scoring in regulation and opened the scoring 90 seconds into OT by burying a three to give Indiana a 92-89 lead. After an Anthony bucket got the Knicks within one, George answered right back with a mid-range J of his own.
Over the summer, George said he did a lot of work shooting mid-range shots and isolation plays. Or as he put it, “finding spots on the floor where I can raise up and shoot.” That work he put in was on display on Wednesday night more so than ever before.
“He’s got the length to get his shot off. It’s very difficult to contest it,” Vogel said. “His little inside-out moves, his Kobe Bryant moves where he’s taking a lateral dribble to create some air space for himself. It just comes down to his shot-making.”
Keep in mind that Paul George is 23 years old and improving on both sides of the floor, growing more confident with each new situation he flourishes in. Anthony has seemingly peaked as a player and George has passed Melo by in his stratospheric rise to superstardom. While Vogel is comparing George to Kobe Bryant, Anthony has morphed into a one-dimensional player. A volume scorer on a good, but not great team.
George scored 12 of the final 15 points for the Pacers to win this game almost single-handedly. Indiana went on to win the game 103-96 and really crush the Knicks’ spirits. It was New York’s 6th straight loss at home
“It’s a tough way to let it slip out of your hands,” Anthony said. “I thought we had the game won, but in overtime they just walked away with it.”
(Related: Anthony’s questionable future with the Knicks)
More specifically he, George, walked away with it.
Vogel remarked that George is “obviously sensational. Even as he’s become sort-of our go-to guy, he’s still very new at crunch-time minutes for us. I think he showed another step. The guy’s got big guts.”
George thinks he’s developed that killer instinct that players like LeBron James and Bryant possess. “A lot of guys don’t now how to” have that killer instinct to mercilessly take a game over in an opposing arena, as George said. “Most people are just born with it. I felt like I was born with it, I just didn’t know how to do it. And now I’m just learning myself again and growing with that confidence.”
That confidence has come to fruition on the court and in the ole StatBox. Besides for rebounds, which Roy Hibbert and David West take care of pretty capably for the Pacers, George has been superior to Anthony in every major category over the season’s first 11 games.
| 13-14 | Min | FG % | Pts | Reb | Ast | Stl | PER | TS % | eFG % | O Rtg | D Rtg | WS | WS/48 |
| Anthony | 39.9 | 41.6 | 26.1 | 9.5 | 2.8 | 1.4 | 21.7 | 51 | 44.5 | 103 | 107 | 1 | 0.106 |
| George | 36.7 | 46.5 | 24.4 | 6.8 | 3.3 | 1.7 | 24.5 | 58.6 | 52.8 | 113 | 93 | 2.2 | 0.262 |
Anthony is actually a negative net player if you take the difference between offensive and defensive rating, while George has been efficient on the offensive end and undoubtedly elite defensively. George has scored 1.7 fewer points per game than Anthony, but on 4.3 fewer shots per game (18 for George, to 22.3 for Anthony). George is also a better 3-point and foul shooter than Anthony.
Some will call this too small of a sample size to determine who is better, but George already started to show his superiority in the playoffs last season when Anthony shot just 40.6 percent from the field with a 100 offensive rating compared to the 112 he had during the regular season. George’s offensive rating remained the same, 104, in both the regular season and the playoffs and has only improved this season.
So what has changed between this season and last?
In the past, George said he “would have deferred, to have someone else be in that position or that role. This time around, I just wanted to be aggressive.”
Anthony said that “all it takes is confidence in this league. I think with George, that’s what he has right now, and it’s growing day by day, game by game, and you can see that when he’s out on the court.”
While George is improving, Anthony remains exactly who he is: A volume scorer who’s a decent defender. Not elite, not like Paul George.
As the Knicks continue to lose, perhaps their fan base will begin to realize that as well.
Shlomo Sprung is a national columnist for Sheridan Hoops who loves advanced statistics and the way they explain what happens on the court. He is also the web editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. A 2011 graduate of Columbia University’s Journalism School, he has previously worked for the New York Knicks, The Sporting News, Business Insider and other publications. His website is SprungOnSports.com. You should follow him on Twitter.
This article is premature to what is a rough draft that is the New York Knicks.
How could you possibly compare two players without first factoring in the play
of their respective teammates? Indiana utilizes a high screen-roll with George
and either Hibbert or West. The two aforementioned big men are known to be
excellent screen men along with a capable touch from the post. Both of those
dimensions are ultimately ignored in the argument of this article. The
attention those two draw allows for clearer looks and better opportunities for
the rest of the Pacer team. That’s not to diminish the value of George, just a
mere token of appreciation of competent and efficient team play. The Knicks team
that played last night has been deflated by injuries to starters Raymond Felton
and Tyson Chandler. Without the threat of rolling big Chandler and penetrating
Felton, a vulnerable Knick team is left in shambles on both ends of the ball.
Also, take a closer look at Anthony’s match-up defensively for most of the game.
David West, who excels in the post and is known to crash the boards offensively,
finished an “inefficient” 4-13 from the field with 10 rebounds. Anthony, playing the power
forward without a traditional rim-protecting big, held his ground and totaled 18
rebounds. Part of defense is rebounding defensively, and Anthony’s effort echos
that message.
In the end, a full-strength Indiana team came out flat against an
injury-depleted Knick team. Mental error defensively along with a referee who
enjoys interjecting himself into key moments ruined what would have been a
stellar, momentum-igniting win for a spiraling Knick team.
Side note: a better article topic would have been analyzing the Knick’s drastic
change in ball movement-oriented offense to ISO-ball down the stretch and their
infatuation for switching on pick and rolls.
This author shows the complete opposite of what the top of the website says. What a poor, poor article.
It’s funny how you cherry-pick the events of last night’s game. Anthony, covered by George scored 30pts. He out-rebounded not just George, he out-rebounded West. He out-rebounded Hibbard. George threw a total brick at the end of the game with a chance to tie it, and the ref bailed him out with a phantom call. I have no doubt George is a great player. So is Melo.