They say hindsight is 20/20, but was there anything more obvious — or perhaps anything more Sixers — than the night that was supposed to centered around Jaylen Brown vs. Jayson Tatum being dominated by the salary the Sixers sent out to Boston to acquire Brown?
Paul George’s 36 points led a Celtics three-point onslaught that allowed them to defeat the Sixers by 22 points in Brown’s first game against his old team since the blockbuster trade in the summer. While emotions were running high for a lot
of the night’s participants, George didn’t feel any extra need to make a statement against the team he spent the last two seasons with.
“My job was just to come in and support JT and be the best version that I could be for him,” George said after the game. “That was my only focus.”
There really doesn’t get much better support than going 6-of-11 from three-point range. The Sixers were frustrated with their inability to stop George getting open from behind the arc, especially his former teammates who know him well.
“He played within the game too, that’s what Paul does. He plays within the game, he takes what the defense gives him, and we gave him too many open looks tonight,” Tyrese Maxey said. “For him to even be able to get up 11 threes, that’s the issue. We know what PG does, we shouldn’t even been allowing him to get up 11 threes, and that’s on us.”
Maxey, along with several other Sixers, were happy to reconnect with a teammate they got along with well during his time. The sting of what PG had just done to them on the floor was still on their minds when asked what it was like to see him again though.
“It’s good to see Paul,” Maxey said. “I didn’t want to see Paul get six threes, 30 points. I love him, love his family, I didn’t care less, I wanted him to score zero points.”
As someone who went through similar injury struggles, Joel Embiid always seemed to have a good relationship with George. He detailed that while in classic Embiid fashion, trolling Tatum a little bit in the process.
“Off the court, we have a special relationship. Families are close, especially both of our kids,” Embiid said. “I’m extremely happy for him. You know, he’s healthy. He’s playing well. He’s been … the start of the season, you see what he did tonight. You can kind of say he’s been the best player on some level.”
George seemed happy to reunite with old teammates as well, referring to them as brothers throughout the night, but his return was never going to elicit the same emotion as lamb chops and gravy. That might have been different if he had been a Sixer longer, but as he told reporters at shoot around before the game, he was only in Philadelphia for two years.
The Sixer crowd didn’t give him the same level of venom that’s typically gone to star players since departing, James Harden in particular has really heard it from Sixers’ crowds each time he’s come back. Most of the crowd’s animosity was aimed at Tatum, but George still had to deal with some rotten fan behavior. Towards the end of the game, the Sixers called a timeout after another Celtics three and George was seen giving the middle finger towards the crowd.
It turns out that despite being a Celtic, George was pretty justified in that response.
“There was a fan being an asshole. Ball rolled to him, he looked me dead in my eyes, dropped the ball on the ground as if, I’m a dog to go fetch or go get it, instead of passing the ball to me like a normal fan would do,” George said, “so then I rolled him a middle finger in return.”
Despite all the new exciting parts of this team, a max player coming back to light up the Sixers in his return to South Philadelphia is a story all too familiar.
At least George isn’t the type of guy to scream “Jaylen Brown over me??!!” down the tunnel after doing so.
