5 reasons LA Clippers can win 2021 NBA championship

2. Paul George looks ready to exorcise some playoff demons

Okay, so Playoff P didn’t exactly come to play in 2020. Pandemic P turned up instead, and that didn’t work out for the Clippers.

Paul George struggled with his shot in the playoffs last season, going on cold streaks that his team couldn’t overcome as he shot just 39.8 percent from the field. He was truly terrible in the series against the Dallas Mavericks in terms of shooting percentage. While he recovered quite a bit against the Denver Nuggets, his performance in Game 7 was a disaster, as he went 4-for-16 from the floor, 2-of-11 from beyond the arc and was a minus-20 overall.

While his playoff dips have been meme’d to death, George’s playoff averages aren’t terrible. It’s just that he has a habit of putting in awful outings at really important moments. In the final game of playoff series across his career, his game score is 9.06. That’s below-average.

The thing is, last year’s playoffs were as unusual as they could be. Georgia admitted to struggling with depression inside the NBA bubble. His game was clearly impacted by the circumstances.

This year, George is feeling it. He’s shooting a career-best 46.9 percent from the floor, knocking down 41.2 percent of his 3-point attempts and averaging 23.4 points, 6.6 rebounds and a career-best 5.2 assists per game. He’s set up to enter the playoffs with a ton of confidence.

Playing like that, he should have plenty of juice to exorcise Pandemic P and truly embrace the Playoff P persona.