Paul George has been the best scorer on the Celtics through two games, and I don’t think it’s a fluke. He is averaging 26.5 points and has made 10 of his 19 threes, per Basketball Reference. That is the second option Boston needed next to Jayson Tatum when it sent Jaylen Brown to Philadelphia in July.
My take, as of Monday night’s home game against Chicago: George is the Celtics’ second star for as long as his legs hold up, and that second part is the whole job. He is 36. He played 41 and 37 regular-season games in his two years with the 76ers. The Celtics play Brooklyn on Tuesday, the second night of their first back-to-back, and I’d rest him for one of those two games. The trade gets judged in April, not October.
What two games showed
The opener in Detroit was the loud one. George scored 38 points on 12-of-21 shooting, made 7 of 12 threes, went 7-of-8 at the line and added five steals in 31 minutes, per the Basketball Reference box score. The Associated Press reported it was the most points by any Celtic in his debut. Boston still lost 121-113 after leading by 22, which George had no patience for afterward. “I’m not a moral victory guy,” he said. “It means nothing.”
Friday was quieter, and more useful. Tatum scored 36 in the 107-103 win over the Knicks, and George played the sidekick: 15 points on 6-of-15 shooting, 3-of-7 from three and seven rebounds in 34 minutes, per the box score. Joe Mazzulla’s read on him after the opener was simple. “The game found him,” he said, per the AP. “He made some great reads throughout the game.”
His shot profile backs it up. More than half of George’s shots this season have been threes, 9.5 of his 18 attempts a game. In Philadelphia, The Boston Globe’s Gary Washburn noted in July, 48 percent of his shots were threes and he made 37.5 percent of them. He is the same type of player in Boston, a perimeter scorer who spaces the floor for Tatum and punishes teams that help off him. That is the job, and he is doing it.
The Celtics already know what a hot George looks like
Boston shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. It lost to him last spring. Philadelphia came back from 3-1 down to beat the Celtics in seven games in the first round, per Basketball Reference, and George made 22 of his 40 threes in that series, per his game log.
That series is part of why I trust the shooting. Over 17 seasons he is a 38.4 percent three-point shooter, and he made 39.2 percent of his threes for Philadelphia last season. A 52.6 percent start will cool off. A 38 percent version of George taking nine threes a night is still a very good second option.
The minutes are the real test
George played 78 regular-season games across two seasons in Philadelphia. Washburn wrote that most of those injuries were to his knees. He also served a 25-game suspension, announced on Jan. 31, 2026, for violating the NBA’s anti-drug policy, which cost him about $11.7 million of his salary, per NBC News.
And he didn’t come into this season feeling great. The AP reported that George said during training camp that his legs felt heavy and he felt winded. “It’s hard to know until the lights come on,” he said after the opener. “It was a rough camp for me.”
Mazzulla was noncommittal before Monday’s game when asked how he would handle back-to-backs with George, Tatum and Mitchell Robinson. “It just depends,” he said. “We trust the sports science team that we have.” That’s the right posture. George is averaging 32.0 minutes, and I’d keep him close to that number all season and give him one end of most back-to-backs. Tuesday’s game against Brooklyn is a good place to start. The next one comes soon: Boston plays at Orlando on Sunday, Nov. 1, and at Houston the next night, per the Celtics schedule on Basketball Reference.
The contract raises the stakes on his health
George makes $54,126,380 this season, per Basketball Reference, second on the roster only to Tatum’s $58.5 million. He holds a $56.6 million player option for 2027-28. Washburn pointed out that even if George opts in, his expiring salary could become a trade chip. If he plays well and stays healthy, Boston gets to choose between keeping a good second option and moving a big expiring salary. If he breaks down, that same contract is just a large number on a team that already has a lot of money tied up in two forwards. I went through what that payroll squeeze means for the rest of the rotation in why Payton Pritchard’s cheap deal is the one Boston has to use now.
The trade also created its own scoreboard. The first meeting between the two teams comes on Nov. 10 in Philadelphia. I wrote about where that feud stands in why Brown’s lamb chop jab at Tatum is aimed at the wrong Celtic. The Celtics win that comparison only if George is on the floor in the spring, playing like he did in Detroit.
What I want to see
Two things, starting this week. First, George keeps taking nine or more threes a game, because that shot is what makes the Tatum-George pairing work. Second, Boston treats his availability like the asset it is. A 36-year-old who missed most of two seasons does not need to play 82 games. He needs to be fresh for the 16 wins that count.
George has already shown Boston the version of himself it traded for. The Celtics’ job now is to make sure that version is still around when the playoffs start.