Trevor Ariza not taking Paul George out his game, according to Paul George

Through the first two games of the Wizards-Pacers series, most of the attention has been focused on Roy Hibbert's wild improvement from Game 1 to Game 2. This has overshadowed what many expected to be the key battle in this series: Paul George vs. Trevor Ariza. Logically, if Ariza could slow George down offensively, it makes it very hard for the Pacers to be successful, unless Roy Hibbert is going into beast mode.

So who is winning the battle after two games? Paul George is, based on how he views Ariza's defensive pressure:

"He's just a deny guy. He's good at just playing that deny the ball to him, pressure on every catch. He's a good defender, but he's not someone that will take me out of my game."

Let's break this quote down.

"He's just a deny guy."

Well yeah, that's how defense works. You might be using different words, but you're talking about the same thing. It's like saying Peyton Manning is just a throwing guy. It's correct, but there's better ways to say it.

"He's good at just playing that deny the ball to him, pressure on every catch."

Again, that's the goal of defense, unless you're guarding a member of the Bullets Forever staff or something.

"He's a good defender,"

Yes.

"but he's not someone that will take me out of my game."

wut.

Paul George averaged 23.9 points and made over 40 percent of his threes in the Pacers' opening round series against the Hawks. Through two games against the Wizards, he's averaging 14.5 points, shooting 1-9 on threes and 9-30 from the field. In the regular season, he averaged 16.7 points per game, shot 32.7 percent from the field and 36.4 percent from three. The only way that sentence is correct is if Paul George is referring to his game from two years ago, or if he thinks he has been playing out of his mind all season long, except for when he plays the Wizards.

Either way, it sounds like the kind of logic that someone would offer when they've been taken out of their game.