Instant observations: Paul George plays crunch-time hero in Sixers win over Hornets

Everything but the rebounding Let’s start with this: I appreciate that this actually felt like a game with meaning for both teams. It was chippy in the first five minutes with high activity on both ends of the floor. It’s a reminder of what basketball can be when the stakes are high, not that the NBA has noticed, as they continue to plow through 82 games with a third of the league tanking through the final quarter of the season.

In any case, you can see the outline of the Sixers’ ceiling whenever they get a few minutes to deploy all the stars. Paul George definitely looks like a player who used the suspension to get his body right, because as he declared after his return vs. the Bulls, he looks a lot more explosive on both ends of the floor.

George had three first-half steals, crowding Hornets players before sparking fast breaks with his hand-eye coordination, and he had some of his best driving moments as a Sixers player against Charlotte. As the Hornets tried to pad the lead in the closing moments of the second quarter, George offered some powerful downhill attacks to beat back the tide, keeping this a five-point game at halftime. Deep in crunch time, surely a bit fatigued playing in his second game in two months, George summoned the strength and the footwork to earn a critical trip to the free-throw line in the final two minutes.

This was, in my mind, perhaps the best example of why Paul George was brought to Philadelphia in the first place. He hit the huge corner three to take the lead with a minute left, and stole the lofted entry pass that stole an important possession from the Hornets moments later. George’s composure throughout this game, whether they were down double digits or locked in a seesaw battle in crunch time, is part of what you pay for when you hire the veteran mercenary in free agency.