The Philadelphia 76ers have been without star center Joel Embiid and backup center Andre Drummond for the past three games. In their absence, they’ve started the 6-foot-8 Guerschon Yabuesele at the 5 spot, and rookie big man Adem Bona has manned the middle for the second unit.
At times, though, Paul George has been tasked with guarding a big. Most notably, during the fourth quarter of their 123-115 loss against the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday, Sixers coach Nick Nurse went with a centerless lineup in which George was alongside Tyrese Maxey, Ricky Council IV, Kelly Oubre Jr. and Caleb Martin. For about three minutes, George was matched up with the Pelicans’ Daniel Theis.
George, who has made four All-Defensive teams, has guarded all sorts of players during his 15-year career, but he’s not particularly used to this. “It’s different,” he told reporters postgame. Then he said he finds it boring.
“I’m used to scrapping and running around and chasing and fighting through screens,” George said. “To be honest, I’m bored playing on a 5. It just don’t do enough for me. But, you know, I think, being mindful of my ability to clog the middle and kind of help and cut off passing lanes and driving lanes and kind of battle with the bigs is what Nick sees in that style. But again, I enjoy chasing the little guys and matching up against wing offensive players.”
George is 6-8 and has a 6-11 wingspan. He has always taken pride in his ability to defend smaller players; in 2011, the year that Derrick Rose won MVP, a rookie, George, guarded the hyper-athletic point guard in the playoffs. Part of his appeal as a defender, though, is that he can guard up and down the positional spectrum. Players like George, who can provide some help-side rim protection and hold their own one-on-one against most 5s, make switch-everything lineups work.
Especially now that he’s 34 years old and doesn’t move quite as quickly as he used to on the perimeter, it makes sense for George to spend more time matched up with bigs than point guards. Even when Embiid is healthy, don’t be surprised when you see George (or Martin) defending the opposing 5, so Philadelphia can switch 1-5 pick-and-rolls and Embiid can roam in the paint. This is why the Boston Celtics put Jayson Tatum on Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II in last year’s NBA Finals, for example.
It’s unclear if Tatum also finds it boring to defend centers. It’s possible he doesn’t love chasing wings around as much as George does, though.
