INDIANAPOLIS – No one’s amassed the identical amount of energy and physical toll defending LeBron James in the last two years, no one but Paul George. Before each matchup across the regular season and late in the playoffs, James and George pound each other’s chests in acknowledgement, and then the understudy thrusts into duty, battered, bruised and sweated on every defensive turn and cut.

Sometimes, George still needs reminding: This must be a two-way game for James and the Miami Heat. Here was the walk into the Indiana Pacers’ locker room on Thursday, a putrid 33 first-half points on the scoreboard and the ceiling of a once promising season revealing itself, and the words of his coach rung in the ears again.

“Green light, Paul, and stay on green,” Frank Vogel told George.

No more easing into the potential final 24 minutes of a postseason, and he understood this. From a rising talent to the preeminent star forward, George had drowned into a second half slump, and he privately had desperately wanted the playoffs to wipe his season’s slate clean. All over the court in the second half of Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals, George ran rampant: 31 of his 37 points, ripping away steals, uncorking one-handed tomahawk dunks and delivering clutch shots to keep alive these Pacers in a 93-90 victory.

Through it all, James could only seethe on the bench, mortified about foul trouble once again hampering him here. There’s something mystifying about LeBron inside this Fieldhouse, where he fouled out in Game 4 of the conference finals a year ago, left to rock his head to the music and absorb words of encouragement from Juwan Howard.

Few, if any, defend James better than George, and yet perhaps the Indiana coaching staff found a new extended cover in Lance Stephenson. Some had been left judging Stephenson’s facetious acts on the court – an ear blow that seemed to amuse James – but he’s so fearless and such a relentless agitator. Stephenson is a vast competitor, not a fool.

Suddenly, the Pacers’ reversal of assignments, Stephenson’s uptake of James, allowed George to cover Dwyane Wade off the ball and permitted him to swipe into passing lanes. It released George of James’ pounding on the dribble, his pummeling on the low post. All those defensive stances had admittedly worn on him, and they had made his jump shot flat in crunch time. Not now, though. Not with the NBA’s best player confined to the sideline. And soon Paul George was darting coast-to-coast, launching jumpers with ease and draining them and usurping LeBron James as the best player on the floor.

“Not having to guard LeBron as much kept Paul a little fresher late in the game, and he got himself going,” David West told RealGM. “He made plays for us with his legs. Defensively, he went off with those breakaways and steals and dunks.”

George went off with his shooting and hoisted 28 total shots, and all the Heat could do was salvage offensive spurts out of James’ supporting cast. Chris Bosh had a consecutive 20-point performance, and James served a pass to him beyond the right three-point arc, served an opportunity to end this series and advance to a fourth straight NBA Finals. Bosh missed, but it’s senseless to criticize James’ decision-making. Two championships and his basketball pedigree give him everlasting credence.

As George said, “‘Bron’s the smartest player in this league.”

Even still, the Heat are so ironclad in closeout games on South Beach, where role players get loose and where Chris “Birdman” Andersen is optimistic to return from his thigh injury. For all the balance within the Pacers’ starters in Game 5, they know George must bring the same aggressiveness to the game on Friday. “I just have to ask myself, ‘Did I leave everything on the floor?’” George said. “D. West keeps telling me, ‘Don’t keep no bullets in the chamber.’”

Green light, Paul George’s coach insists, and late Wednesday night the shot slinger emerged from a most intense regimen inside the Indiana locker room. The cold tub, the icing of a body that punctuated the life remaining in these Pacers. He trembled to his locker, and moments later Roy Hibbert and Luis Scola talked about returning to the Fieldhouse for Game 7. One more win to bring this conference final back here, George whispered. One more.