TORONTO — Paul George is the new Iceman.
The pounding that an NBA player takes each game is remarkable — this season, just 18 players played in all 82 of their team’s games, the lowest number since 1966-67 when 16 players played all of what was then an 81-game schedule — so it’s nothing to see players sitting in front of their lockers with their feet in an ice-bath following a game. But there was George on Saturday afternoon: one big-ass bag of ice around his left upper leg, another around his right upper leg and another wrapped around the area of his right leg that was fractured in August 2012, during Team USA’s preparations for the London Olympics. I don’t know if I’ve never seen as much ice on an athlete.
And it’s ice the Toronto Raptors are going to have to put George on Monday night if they plan on evening their best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarter-final at one game apiece. Which means it’s time to drop the minutes limitation on DeMarre Carroll and give him 30 minutes up against George. Monday could be too late, and if as my colleague Michael Grange pointed out Sunday Carroll seems almost lobbying for the lifting of that restriction, then all systems should be go.
George’s story and comeback is, of course, well-known. Less known, perhaps, is the fact that when the Indiana Pacers made a conscious attempt to move to an uptempo style — and few teams changed course as quickly as they did — George originally balked at playing the power forward role that his 6-foot-9 frame was asked to assume.
The Pacers’ shift is borne out statistically. Their scoring increased 4.9 points per game to creep up to 17th-most points in the NBA after being 24th in 2014-15. They were first in points off turnovers in the regular season after being 26th the season before; 12th in fast break points compared to 27th; and fourth in steals per game compared to 29th. They were 10th in pace (number of possessions per 48 minutes) after finishing 19th last season.
Frank Vogel, the Pacers head coach, said early in the season that he thought George had the potential to become the best two-way player in the game in the new system if he’d give it a chance. Sure looked that way Saturday.
NO PILLAR OF STRENGTH
John Gibbons suggested on Wednesday he was thinking about dropping Kevin Pillar out of the leadoff spot at least against right-handed batters and he did just that Sunday, elevating left-hand hitting Michael Saunders to the role.
Pillar was done in not just by his on-base percentage, but also by the fact that he had one well-hit ball in 36 at bats against right-handers. In fact, through Saturday he’d made more soft contact than any hitter on the team — and beyond the Nos. 2 to 4 hitters and, at times, Ryan Goins, contact of any type has been an issue for the Blue Jays.
In their win on Sunday, the Blue Jays struck out 12 times — the 10th time this season they’ve hit double-digits in strikeouts, after finishing 2015 with a total of 28 games of 10-plus strikeouts. The Blue Jays’ 136 strikeouts through 13 games are a major league record, eclipsing the 132 strikeouts of the 2014 New York Mets. We’re still in small sample size time; 15 of those strikeouts have come in 38 ninth-inning plate appearances, many of them against some pretty decent pitchers, and many of them with the team looking to come from behind.
The Blue Jays went into Sunday’s game with the fifth-most swinging strikes in the majors, which is kind of a silver lining according to my Baseball Central colleague Kevin Barker, since it suggests correctable early-season timing issues as much as anything.
QUIBBLES AND BITS
• Monday morning’s game against J.A. Happ will be the first time in 2016 that the Red Sox have faced a left-handed pitcher. That’s the farthest they’ve gone into a season without facing a southpaw since 1996, when they faced David Wells in their 13th game. Red Sox batters have only 29 plate appearances against lefties this season, the fewest in the American League and second-fewest in the majors behind the Pittsburgh Pirates.
• Stuff that surprises you: Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook are Blackhawks playoff cornerstones but neither has played as many post-season games as Niklas Hjalmarsson, whose 120 games aren’t only the most among Hawks defencemen, but third-most in team history tied with Jonathan Toews. Remarkable, considering the number of blocked shots he racks up.
• Lionel Messi scored his 500th career goal for both club (Barcelona) and country (Argentina) on Sunday against Valencia after being held goalless for five consecutive matches for the first time since April 2010. Messi hasn’t gone six matches without a goal since March 1-April 29, 2008 … when he sat out eight games with an injury.
• Bryce Harper still continues to show disrespect to the game of baseball — or, at least, Philadelphia Phillies pitchers. Harper homered and had two hits Sunday for the sixth consecutive game at Citizens Bank Park. No opposing player has done that in six straight visits to Philadelphia, with records going back to 1900. The Nationals lost 3-2 to see their seven-game winning streak snapped. It was just their second loss in 11 games this season.
THE ENDGAME
The Raptors’ game operations folks were rightfully torched on social media Saturday afternoon for a bizarre ‘Top 10 things to come out of Indiana list,’ that was shown on the Air Canada Centre video board. It was a no-autopsy, no-foul kind of thing, but enough attention was drawn to it that it was, we’re told, addressed internally. Strange: of all the crowds in this city, the one that needs the least amount of gimmickry to get it going is a Raptors crowd. I said this on Twitter, and I’ll say it here: play good music and get the hell out of the way.
Jeff Blair hosts The Jeff Blair Show from 9-11 a.m. and Baseball Central from 11-Noon ET on Sportsnet 590/The Fan.