Gregg Doyel

gregg.doyel@indystar.com

Pacers at Raptors, 7 p.m. Monday, FSI, NBA

TORONTO – The spotlight is shining now, and Paul George has gone looking for it. He believes superstardom is his destiny, and he knows an ascending moment when he sees one.

And he sees one in these 2016 NBA playoffs.

He also saw one a few months ago in this same Air Canada Centre, site of the 2016 NBA All-Star Game, where Paul George scored 41 points, one shy of Wilt Chamberlain’s record from 1962.

“Basically,” Pelicans forward Anthony Davis said that night, “he was showing guys that he’s back to rare form.”

Basically, I’m telling you today, that’s by design. Aside from his astounding talent, the biggest thing about Paul George is his ego – which can be such a great thing. At times, sure, the ego drives you nuts. He sees the game as a series of opportunities to elevate his brand, like the way he seeks out only opposing stars for postgame handshakes, and that can be off-putting.

But that ego fuels games like Saturday, when George absolutely destroyed the Toronto Raptors in Game 1 of their first-round series. He scored 33 points and hounded Raptors star DeMar DeRozan into a miserable offensive game. That, too, was by design. In 2008, DeRozan was the superstar recruit from Compton, Calif., the No. 6 player in the country. That same year, 65 miles to the north, George was a little-known kid out of Palmdale – rated No. 292.

Back then, Paul George said Sunday, DeMar DeRozan was the star he wanted to be.

Now George has set his sights higher. He’s not naming names, but you can guess who they are. When people talk about the greatest basketball players in the world, he wants to be in the conversation.

“I always wanted to be the best,” he was telling me Sunday. “A lot of guys have different motivations. My motivation has been being elite in this league.”

This is the time to do it, and it’s the time he’s so often done it. He hasn’t been perfect in the postseason – hey, even LeBron James shrank in the 2011 NBA Finals – but this is the time of year when Paul George has written the legend of Paul George.

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It started his rookie year, when he was a role player averaging 7.8 points per game until Pacers coach Frank Vogel decided to give him a new role: stop Derrick Rose. That was the year Rose won the MVP. That was the playoffs. This is what George did: limited Rose to 4-for-18 shooting in Game 3, then 6-of-22 shooting in Game 4. The Bulls won that series in five games, but George had proved a point – to himself.

“I was put into that fire my rookie year, having to guard Derrick Rose,” George says. “You learn a lot. You do it at the biggest stage, that goes along with your career.”

It has. The 2013 Eastern Conference finals provided that memorable King James coronation, when George and James dueled in the third quarter of Game 2. George scored nine points in the final 6½ minutes, with a 3-point play with 5.1 seconds left; James scored 11 points in the quarter and buried a 25-footer at the buzzer. After LeBron hit that 3 in his face, George started walking to the Pacers bench when LeBron called out, “Hey, Paul.” And extended his hand to slap palms.

LeBron knew.

The moments mounted. In the 2014 playoffs, George averaged 23.9 ppg and 10.7 rebounds against the Hawks – and posted 39 and 12 in Game 4 in Atlanta to help the Pacers reclaim home-court advantage. In the 2014 conference finals, against the Heat one more time, George averaged 24 points and poured in 37 with six steals to help the Pacers stave off elimination in Game 5.

Then the broken leg. The 2016 All-Star Game reminder that Paul George is back. And now Game 1 against the Raptors.

“Defensively we held them long enough,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said after the game, “and then all at once Paul George gets going.”

By design. George sees the spotlight and moves toward it, which is what I was telling him Sunday when he started to nod.

“It’s natural,” he was saying. “Some guys like pressure, some guys like being in the spotlight.”

You love it, I said.

"I love it. I love it,” he said. “It’s a make-or-break thing for me. … This is where you make your mark. This is where you showcase it. This is where you put yourself in that category of being one of the top guys in this league, and some guys want it. Some guys don’t.”

George has always wanted it.

“He has since he’s been here,” Pacers President Larry Bird was telling me Sunday. “He’s always wanted his own team, wanted to be the guy.

When David (West) was here, (George) always knew where he fit in. Not that he wasn’t our best player, but he knew that David was the guy and set the tone, and Roy (Hibbert) set the tone on the defensive end. He waited, but when Paul’s time came, he felt that everything should go through him.”

And it does. It damn sure did Sunday, when George struggled before making the unusual move at halftime to find a quiet spot alone in the locker room to study film of the first half. George scored 17 points in the third quarter and then completely took over the fourth, scoring 10 and handing out four assists as the Pacers ran the same play – starring Paul George – because the Raptors couldn’t do anything about it.

“Last night the second half he played as well as anybody I’ve seen in a long time,” Bird said. “You always have guys score a lot of points, but you notice the fourth quarter he was laying the ball off for dunks and easy baskets. And he was still guarding. He was guarding people. He was playing with poise and a purpose.”

He was playing like this is his team and this is his time. And for the first time in his career, it is both.

Behold. Paul George has decided to be the best player in this series. And he wants to know if the Raptors can do anything about it.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.

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