The Boston Celtics may have lost their season opener against the Detroit Pistons, and in dispiriting fashion as well after letting the Pistons go on a 23-0 run en route to a 121-113 loss, but the play of Paul George could not have been more encouraging.
Many believed heading into the 2026-27 season that George is washed up and that the Celtics were asinine for pursuing him as the primary return they got for superstar forward Jaylen Brown. George shut up that talk really quickly.
He went off for 38 points, the most any Celtics player has ever scored in their debut for the team, and he did so on efficient shooting — making 12 of his 21 field-goal attempts and seven of his 12 shots from beyond the arc.
George still has this huge scoring games in him, but as he’s gotten older, they have come more and more sparingly. But whenever the usage is there and George is healthy enough to take plenty of shots, especially from beyond the arc, he has shown that he can still be a dangerous scorer in the association.
Some may think that this huge game is an outlier, and that it’s all downhill from there for George as a Celtics player. But George did average 21-6-3 on 47/42/74 shooting splits after he returned from his 25-game suspension last season for the Philadelphia 76ers.
With him being the second option in Beantown behind Jayson Tatum, there is a chance that George’s level of play for Boston is closer to where his production was in his final season for the Los Angeles Clippers. During the 2023-24 season, George put up nearly 23 points a night while shooting 41.3% from three on 7.9 attempts per contest.
The Celtics have always placed an emphasis on the three-ball under head coach Joe Mazzulla, and no one should be surprised if George ends up averaging over eight three-point attempts per game — which would no doubt boost his scoring production relative to his days in Philly.
What makes this sort of game from George difficult to trust for some is that he can be very inconsistent. With age, he’ll only be more prone to rough shooting displays. Just this preseason, the veteran forward shot 25% from the field in two games and averaged just nine points in 24.5 minutes per contest.
His overreliance on the jumpshot means that there will be volatility in his production. But relative to expectations, the Celtics forward is going to blow everybody away.
George’s defense remains top-notch, and the Celtics saw that firsthand during the 2026 NBA playoffs when he slowed down Brown during the 76ers’ comeback from 3-1 down in the series.
The mere fact that George is an active defender and is willing to defer to his teammates when his shot isn’t falling makes him quite the crucial member of this team. His importance to the squad makes it so that he should log as many minutes as possible (all while protecting his health), leading to some consistent production across the board.
George also consistently ranks atop the NBA in deflections per game; he ranked fifth last season among players who got consistent minutes throughout the year, deflecting the ball 4.1 times per game. In his debut for the Celtics, his imprint was all over their disruptive defense, recording five thefts.
No, he won’t be scoring 38 every night or recording five steals every game. That is not the expectation, and it never should be.
But now that George has more like-minded players alongside him and is playing in a system that’s tailor-made to his strengths, the best may be yet to come for him in green. The key now for Boston is to keep him healthy, especially when he’s missed an average of around 30 games per season since joining the Clippers back in 2019.
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