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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: HEAT v PACERSMay 19, 2014Paul GeorgeINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA: Practice Day Q. How much do you guys have to remind yourself, almost alternate between we're playing LeBron and he might come with something in Game 2 that we haven't seen yet in this series, and yet also feeling that he's just one guy and we can't get too psyched up about one player. PAUL GEORGE: Yeah, he's great. He's a great player in this league. Probably one of the best, if not the best player in this league. So he's capable of doing mean things on the court. This group, we've seen him go for 50, 20, and 10, or 40, 20, and 10 last year or a couple years ago. So we know what he's capable of when he's on his full locked in A‑game. That's what we expected in Game 1. We've just got to do a great job of battling every guy and really limiting their role players. Q. How did you feel about him not shadowing you for 48 minutes yesterday? PAUL GEORGE: Whether he did or not, I was going to keep the same approach, stay attacking, really just try to run them. Try to run them so it would be easier for me on the defensive end. Q. But do you miss him when he's not around? PAUL GEORGE: Yeah, Mark. Q. As you noted, you guys have seen this, like last year Game 3, you've seen them come back hard and try to go at you guys. What do you think has changed about your team that you have confidence you'd be able to handle a tougher charging, more aggressive Heat team? PAUL GEORGE: I just think we just grew as a team. We're much more experienced.  A lot of plays that we made, we wouldn't have made last year. I think a lot of guys just got that confidence under them. Lance made huge plays. George was aggressive off the bounce, particularly against this team. So, again, a lot of stuff we did, we wouldn't have done. I think just have a familiarity playing this team has grown our confidence. Q. So you feel that, if they do come out so much more aggressive, what's your confidence level about being able to match up? PAUL GEORGE: I think we can match them. I'm confident that we're going to match their‑‑ whatever level they bring it at, I'm confident that this group can match it. We've done so. It's just about getting it done at this point. Q. What would be the keys to getting that offensive performance from Game 1 transition back to Game 2? PAUL GEORGE: We've still got to attack the rim, attack the paint, and move it. I thought we did a great job of getting guys good looks with rhythm because we were aggressive off the bounce and we were moving it to the guys on the perimeter to shoot it. Q. As important as you guys talked about having home court advantage for Game 7 would be ultimately, are you starting to get the sense that having it for games 1 and 2 might be as least as significant for your hopes in this series? PAUL GEORGE: Yeah, because it gets us off to a good start. It gives us confidence that we can play this team and win against this team. Again, getting off to a good start is everything playing against this group. We didn't do that in the previous series, and we were able to slide by, by being a better team. We can't do that against this team. Q. What do you think the impact is of having Larry Bird on your side even though he doesn't play anymore? PAUL GEORGE: Just having his presence here. He kind of lets us do everything by just learning. But when we do have opportunities to go and talk to him, it's just so much info that you can't get from anyone else. That's what's been great for me being around him, Lance being around him. He's really helped us in growing as far as learning the game and knowing the game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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