Paul George laments lack of adjustment in Game 5 loss

Paul George may not have mentioned Roy Hibbert by name after Monday's Game 5 loss to the Atlanta Hawks, but he may as well have for how clear it was what he was talking about.

The Pacers once again failed to adapt to the unique style of play the Hawks have thrown at them on Monday, losing 107-97, a final score that hid the reality of the game given that the Pacers trimmed the lead from 20 in the fourth quarter. The Hawks rained down threes and largely avoided the mid-range area, the part of the floor Indiana's defense is designed to force teams to shoot from.

Five games in and trailing 3-2 in the series, Indiana has done very little to switch up their coverages, something that isn't lost on George.

"It was frustrating because we didn't make a change," George said. "We let them run the same action, the same shot. We didn't do nothing. So that was frustrating."

Power forward David West, who has been perhaps the team's most effective weapon in the series, more or less agreed:

We have to be able to make better adjustments. We just didn't respond. I have no explanation on why we gave up 40-something [points] in the second quarter. Coach [Frank Vogel] throws [the starters] back out there and says, 'Get us out of the hole.' Just tough, particularly when a team is rolling, feeling good. We're in an uphill battle the whole game.

With Hibbert posting zeroes across the board on Monday and providing little in the way of defensive impact, the message is becoming clear: Normally one of the best defensive players in the league, this just isn't the series for Hibbert.

The numbers are striking: 4.8 points, 3.4 rebounds and 0.6 blocks in 22 minutes with 31.3 percent shooting. While the struggles plagued him late in the year, too, specifically after he took a hard LeBron James elbow on March 26, being a complete negative to the team is a new phenomenon.

To wit, the Pacers offense gets 9.6 points per 100 possessions worse with Hibbert on the floor, while the defense only improves by 1.7 points. The net result is that the team has outscored Atlanta by three in the 130 minutes Hibbert has sat but have been outscored by 15 in the 110 minutes he's played.