PHILADELPHIA -- Two nights ago in Oklahoma City, the Thunder dropped an unseemly game to the LeBron-less Lakers, their fifth loss in six games. Things felt tense in the locker room.
The game started late because of national television accommodations, and Paul George sat in the cold tub in the back of the Thunder locker room chatting with Russell Westbrook, Jerami Grant and Raymond Felton for more than an hour, finally coming out to get dressed sometime after 1 a.m.
He settled in front of the customary whiteboard where players talk to reporters postgame in OKC, and laid out the current situation plain and straightforward.
"We're just not getting it done," he said. "Simple as that. We're just not getting it done when we need to.
"It's a marathon," George said. "We'll clean whatever we need to clean up. It's good, it's good for us to address this and have something that we need to work on going forward, just to get better as a group."
Saturday's game had a sudden significance for the Thunder. They're headed into a tough leg of the race, with their schedule ranked the toughest in the league the rest of the way. The night could be getting darker, or the sun could start rising with a course correction against a good team -- like a 76ers squad that hadn't lost at home to a Western Conference team this season.
For 47 minutes, 45 seconds, the Thunder were on their way. Their recent games against the Sixers have been highly entertaining with plenty of trash talk and emotion. But the Thunder had executed well, played quality defense and even in a close game, largely played better than the Sixers. There was what felt like a big moment, where Westbrook passed to Terrance Ferguson for a clutch 3 with 42 seconds left, a dagger-ish shot that featured confidence and trust in a young player by Westbrook that paid off.
But with the Sixers down three, Westbrook reached in as Joel Embiid pulled from the top of the key for 3, and hit him across the arm. It was a two-for-one: Embiid got three free throws to tie the score, and Westbrook fouled out. With Westbrook on the bench, Dennis Schroder checked in, and coach Billy Donovan elected not to use his final timeout, wanting to take advantage of the full court for the final shot. Schroder got hemmed up against the sideline and threw a bad crosscourt pass that was picked off by Jimmy Butler. He raced to the rim and finished a go-ahead layup with 6.9 seconds left. If Thursday's loss to the Lakers left the locker room grim, this one was going to be rock bottom for their season.
Donovan used his final timeout, and with no Westbrook, dialed up a play to free George curling into rhythm at the top of the key. He slithered off a screen by Steven Adams, set his feet, and let it fly. All net, plus a foul on Butler.
"I've got the best screener [in the league] cleaning my guy for me to get a free catch up top," George said. "We've run it so many times this year. We've ran it to a T -- I've made it, I've missed it. But that's a big-time play for us."
George is right. They ran the exact same play against the Bulls earlier this season -- he missed at the buzzer, and OKC lost. But this one he drilled. With the Sixers out of timeouts, Ben Simmons brought the ball up, handed off to Butler who pumped-faked twice beyond the 3-point line trying to get George or Ferguson in the air. George yelled at Ferguson to stay down, Butler took an awkward shot that missed long, and OKC survived 117-115 for maybe its most important win of the season.
"This is a big win," George said. "Big road win. Especially, we've been dropping close games, so it's good to not only beat a good team but pick up a close game."
With James Harden's historic scoring run and Giannis Antetokounmpo's ruthless efficiency, George has slipped a bit in the MVP conversation, but Saturday's fourth quarter featured the kinds of things MVPs do. Not just the big shot, but the entire fourth quarter: 14 points on 4-of-7 shooting (3-of-3 from 3).
"I mean, that's PG," Ferguson said. "You don't get too excited anymore about those. I mean, they happen so many times. PG's doing what PG does, and we just got to see it and get a win."
It's George's second winning shot of the season, and really, of his career. He had been known, and sarcastically mocked, for missing clutch shots, especially after a Gatorade commercial came out that featured him saying, "No overtime tonight," then making a buzzer-beater, something he never actually did in an Indiana Pacers uniform. He washed most of that negativity away against the Nets earlier this season when he hit a game-winning 3, but that was on a night he was red-hot scoring with 47 points, 25 in the fourth quarter. Saturday's shot had a different magnitude, coming against a very good team, in a critical spot of the season and on a night when George wasn't at his best. With Westbrook out, the play was for him, and everybody knew it.
"I don't think about it," George said of worrying about talk of his clutch misses. "That's not my job. My job is to be a ballplayer. And I know what comes with it. You make shots, you miss shots. It's not my job to keep stats of what I've made and what I've missed. I don't worry about that. I'm going to shoot it with confidence. If I make it, we win. If I miss it, we lose it. That's what it comes down to and I know that going into the shot. I just know I've spent a lot of time shooting the ball in my life and again, if I make it, good for us and if I miss it, good for us. I'll move forward.
"I don't let it linger. I don't hang my head. That's the media's job, to try to put this over me, that 'Paul can't shoot this,' or 'he's not clutch.' I don't worry about that."
There was something emblematic about George's shot. It came with Westbrook on the bench, so it was up to him. George has risen to stand as Westbrook's peer in OKC, and though there's no tug-of-war about whose team it is or anything like that, George is asserting himself as the team's best player. Against the Lakers, he didn't take a shot in the fourth quarter -- Westbrook went 1-of-8 -- and finally got a look a couple of minutes into overtime. Westbrook's ruthless closing ability has been well chronicled, but he has lacked the same sharp crunch-time edge this season. There's a willingness, even an eagerness to defer to George, but Westbrook is still a star of significant luminosity with an unwavering self-belief. It's a balance, and one that's not always easy to manage.
But the runway was cleared Saturday, and George answered the call.
"I think this group has done a good job of staying collected, staying in the moment, not dwelling on a play and hanging our heads," George said. "Everybody had full confidence going into our final offensive possession."
That's because they knew exactly where the ball was going.