Paul George scored 31 points to guide the Central Division-leading Indiana Pacers over the struggling Houston Rockets 105-95.
"My guys found me, so I just had to knock shots down," the Associated Press quoted George as saying. "It felt good, it's easy to start in a flow when you get some good looks early on and that was the case tonight."
"He (George) has been putting in a lot of work before practice, after practice, before games, getting up a lot of shots, so we keep going to him and he's been playing real well," All-Star center Roy Hibbert added.
"Right now, Paul's been carrying this team and David's (West) been carrying this team, so they're doing a pretty good job."
The Pacers rebounded behind George after a dismal start in the current season and they have won 15 games out of the last 20.
"Paul George, what can you say?" Pacers coach Frank Vogel said. "I've never really seen a defender like Paul. He's dominating, he was dominant tonight."
For the Pacers, David West added 20 points, seven assists and 11 rebounds, while George Hill had 15 points. Hibbert finished with 12 points and nine rebounds.
George made 11 out of 19 attempts from the field and also hit seven 3-pointers against Houston.
For the Rockets, Omer Asik was the leading scorer with 22 points and 12 rebounds. James Harden and Carlos Delfino had 17 points apiece, Chandler Parsons scored 16 points and Jeremy Lin finished with 10 points and five rebounds as Houston lost their sixth straight game.
"We can get things going for a while but we have a period where we struggle," coach Kevin McHale said. "And we're constantly going through a period in the first half where we have a slew of turnovers and then it's a battle to get back and fight and get over the hump."
Indiana got off to a good start behind George and outshined the Rockets 31-18 in the first quarter. Houston tried to turn the game around by outscoring the Pacers 34-28 in the second period, but they were still trailing by seven points at the end of the first half.
George made 8-of-11 from the field and hit five 3-pointers in the first half.
Asik's jumper took the score to 61-58 with 9:01 left in the third quarter. Then Indiana had a 10-0 run to extend the lead over the Rockets to 73-61. With the help of a 3-point shot George helped the Pacers to an 83-69 advantage.
"They were able to get their hands in the passing lanes and disrupt what we were trying to do," Lin said. "We were never able to build a lot of momentum at any point in the game."
Houston managed to outscore the Pacers 26-22 in the fourth quarter, but lost the game by 10 points.
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