ATLANTA — The Philadelphia 76ers took a tough 120-117 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday night, but they received a big performance from Paul George on the road.

The 16-year veteran continues his strong play on the season as he dropped 35 points on 11-for-21 shooting along with 7-for-9 from deep with four rebounds in the contest. He looked like Paul George again. The 9-time All-Star was able to get downhill, get by defenders, and finish at the rim as he looked like the player the Sixers thought they were getting when they signed him to a 4-year deal in the 2024 offseason.

“Just been healthier,” George said after the loss. “Last year was a lot going on. I was just trying to patch up stuff. This year, I’m a lot healthier. I feel like I can play my game. I feel like I can be myself. There’s still some things I got to come back. I’m not all the way 100, but I’m more myself than I was last year. So that’s the positive that I can take, and everything else is with time, I’m just going to continue to get better.”

After a miserable 2024-25 season in which George only played 41 games and saw a steep decline in production from his All-Star season in 2023-24 with the Los Angeles Clippers, there were whispers that George was washed. The great people of NBA Twitter let it be known their opinion that they believed the best of George was in the past, but he wanted to shut those thoughts down.

“I mean, prior to coming here, I was coming off one of my most efficient seasons,” George explained. “All-Star that year. I didn’t see myself being washed that fast, but I knew. I knew that this league is about what you can do now, and they tend to forget everything that I have done. So, it was a bit of motivation going into the summer to just get healthy and kind of let everything else take care of itself.”

George isn’t wrong about his final season with the Clippers. He averaged 22.6 points and shot 47.1% from the floor and 41.3% from deep before that miserable first season with the Sixers. It was a lot for him to handle mentally as the outside noise grew louder, and he had high expectations for himself, but he is working his way back from all of that in order to be the player the Sixers expect.

“Oh, my God. I mean, it was rough, man,” George began reminiscing of 2024-25. “It was brutal. And when you play for Philly, it’s brutal, man. I had an expectation coming into the year, and for me, me alone, like not even the noise outside and whatever people said, you know? It was just me, the expectation I had, and my first year playing with these guys, and the expectation they had of me, and it was just a lot that physically, I just couldn’t do and so, yeah, mentally, man, it broke me down. It was rough and hard times just because it was like, ‘Man, I know what I’m capable of, but my body’s just not allowing it.’ So it was a rough one last year.”

Instead of whining or complaining about the tough season, George put his head down and got to work over the summer. He made sure he was in the best shape possible to help Philadelphia turn things around and move forward. His season ended on March 3, and he put in work in the gym to get back at it for the Sixers and it has paid off.

“I mean, through that time all the way leading up to opening night, I mean, I might have took off three weeks that whole time span,” George stated. “I probably took off three weeks here and there through almost a whole year. So, that was a lot of time for me to just work on my body. It was around the clock every day. Even on vacation, I’m lifting, I’m working out. Wherever I was at, I was working out.”

As George and the Sixers move forward, he will still have to battle through whatever ailments he’s dealing with, but the 9-time All-Star is off to a great start. The work he’s put in is showing at a high level.

“So, yeah, I had a lot of time,” he finished. “A lot of time to work on my body, and I feel like it’s paying off. I feel stronger. My body has morphed, and it’s the reason why I think—although things are still coming back—I think it’s why I’m off to kind of a good start.”