TORONTO – Like DeMar DeRozan, Paul George watched the final minutes of Game 2 tick down from the bench. Unlike DeRozan, George did so knowing that his team had lost the game and that his coach was saving him for a better time – in this case, Thursday’s Game 3 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinal back home in Indianapolis.
The Indiana Pacers must quietly be pleased knowing what they will get from their best player, who has been the leading scorer in both a Game 1 win and Monday’s 98-87 Game 2 loss. George was shackled by the Toronto Raptors during the regular-season, but after 61 points through two games, he’s back to being a guy that the Raptors’ Kyle Lowry sees as unstoppable. Just go ahead and put him down for 25 or 30 points. Do it.
“He’s been phenomenal … We need to make it more difficult for him,” Lowry said.
The Raptors? Well, they simply can’t say that about their leading scorer DeRozan, not when their head coach uses the word “tightness” in reference to his 27-year-old, sixth-year pro’s run of post-season ineffectiveness. Tightness? Max players don’t get tight in the playoffs.
To borrow from Toronto’s most recent post-season experience so far, DeRozan has been more R.A. Dickey than Jose Bautista. He’s been an issue creator, not a problem solver.
After Saturday’s Game 1 win, George predicted that DeRozan – who was not up to the task of guarding him – would come out in Game 2 and make the shots that he’d missed. Monday, the Raptors threw all sorts of bodies at George – DeMarre Carroll, Norman Powell and even Lowry – but freed from that task, DeRozan still wasn’t an offensive factor.
George finished with 28 points, 10 of them from the free-throw line, despite picking up his second foul in the first quarter.
“The foul Kyle drew on me was a cheap foul,” George said. “[Referee] Monty [McCutchen] came over and told me he messed that one up, but it happens.”
The Pacers fell behind 7-6 on Powell’s three-pointer three minutes into the game and never pulled back. The Raptors lead was down to four at 67-63 in the third quarter when Pacers head coach Frank Vogel made an interesting decision: He took Monta Ellis out with 2:43 left, then let both he and George sit on the bench for the first three minutes of the fourth quarter, by which point the Raptors had an 11-point lead and their reserves-plus-Lowry were in the process of putting the game away. George scored five more points until Vogel called him off with 3:16 left in the game.
“That early lead really favoured them,” said the Pacers’ Solomon Hill, who was minus-15 in 27 minutes. “We had a run where we were getting some answer-back baskets, where we were able to move the ball quickly. We made, maybe, one run but once it got to 18 we couldn’t close.”
Hill believed the Pacers may have found something out about the Raptors by the way they were able to have some success in transition, but in the same breath, he acknowledged that “we need to change some of our pick-and-roll coverage,” a nod towards the impact Jonas Valanciunas had on the game.
“We need to get sharper,” said Pacers centre Myles Turner, who suffered a lower back injury early in the second quarter and had just four more points the rest of the way. “The thing is, they [the Raptors] get to watch videotape just like we do. They always say that teams get better during the playoffs.”
George called Valanciunas “the guy causing us problems, right now.” It will be difficult to handle him, as both Pacers big men Ian Mahnimi and Turner are hobbled by back issues. And, like Vogel who said “I thought we had opportunities to take this game,” George wasn’t interested in finding a silver lining the form of a road split.
“I’m upset about this one,” George said. “Usually, 1-1 you feel good about it, but I’m upset because of a lot of stuff we gave up. The game was set up for us the same way as Game 1.”
And so it’s off to Indiana for the Raptors. An entire city has exhaled, but they’ve also held in some breath wondering about DeRozan. Perhaps he needs to take a page from George’s book.
“This team is so good loading up, that I’m not able to get to the rim,” George said. “So, I’m just trying to make it easy. I’m not forcing it. I just need to get to a spot where I’m comfortable.”