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Paul George looks like old self, scores 20 1st-quarter points vs. Pistons

Dan Devine
·Senior NBA writer

Following a preseason-opening loss to the New Orleans Pelicans, Paul George renewed his objections to the Indiana Pacers' plan to play him at power forward this season, telling reporters, “I don’t know if I’m cut out for a 4 spot. I don’t know if this is my position." After some "clarification" from team president Larry Bird and head coach Frank Vogel, the 25-year-old George once again gave it the ol' college try and found out what many NBA fours have learned over the past few seasons — things can get much easier when you don't have to play against Anthony Davis.

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George opened up Tuesday's preseason tilt against the Detroit Pistons on fire, bedeviling the likes of Ersan Ilyasova, Anthony Tolliver, Marcus Morris and rookie Stanley Johnson inside and out en route to a 20-point opening quarter on 7-for-8 shooting, including a 4-for-5 mark from 3-point land. He'd finish with 32 points in just under 24 minutes of work, helping propel the Pacers to a 115-112 road win.

More important than the win was the fact that — some 14 months removed from the horrific broken leg that put an abrupt halt to his rise to superstardom fact, and six months after an abbreviated late-season comeback in which he often seemed tentative and unsure of himself — he looked like Paul Freakin' George, a calm and confident beast capable of lighting you up from long-distance, blowing by you off the bounce, powering through you in the paint and dropping bucket after bucket on your head before hitting the dab (or perhaps sneezing into the crook of his arm, responsibly working to prevent the spread of germs) on his way back down the court.

After pounding the Pistons, George allowed that there might just be something to this whole "give me the ball against slower-footed dudes and let me cook" thing that Bird and Vogel have thought up, according to Nate Taylor of the Indianapolis Star:

"With a four on me, I have that confidence that I'm going to be able to get a shot," George said. "When you got that confidence that you're going to get a shot, you're going to make those shots. My teammates did a great job of finding me. We have attackers and that lane is just wide open and it allows me to play freely." [...]

"He's going to be explosive with the small lineup and the big lineup," Vogel said of George. "He played most of his minutes at the four, but he's going to be great with both lineups when he's aggressive like that and making good decisions."

Then again, George's issue never had anything to do with that end of the court. After Tuesday's win, he seemed pleased by Vogel's willingness to adjust Indy's defensive coverages to make things a bit easier on him.

“It wasn’t the concern offensively that I wasn’t going to be able to play the four position," George said. "It was defensively where I’ve struggled and it’s an adjustment. We did some things that we changed up. We had Solo [Solomon Hill] on the fours, we had C.J. [Miles] on the fours and I was able to play my natural position defensively.”

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Whether the Pacers will be able to get away with those sorts of switches against burlier opposition in the heat of regular-season play remains to be seen. For now, though, Vogel's accommodation of George's defensive concerns suggests that Indiana's amenable to taking a flexible and fluid approach to the fundamental shift in its game plan, which should go a long way toward alleviating George's fear of being a square peg determinedly hammered into a round hole.

"You're always all-in because you're part of the team, but I'm like, we have to wait and see how it develops," George said before Tuesday's game. "We're just testing this out now in the preseason to see if it can be our makeup. If not, I'm sure we'll go back to traditional Indiana basketball."

If changing the Pacers' plodding process produces results like Tuesday's, though, they might not have to ... and George might find himself feeling pretty OK with that.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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