Paul George carried off; sore left calf 'nothing serious,' coach says

The Indiana Pacers got a scare Wednesday night when forward Paul George had to be carried off the court by teammates midway through the fourth quarter of their loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.

The Pacers said he had a sore left calf.

"Nothing serious," coach Frank Vogel said. "He got kicked pretty strongly in his calf, and it caused a calf strain."

George was attended to on the bench before being carried back to the locker room.

"I just felt it," George said. "I knew it wasn't nothing good.

"Just came off a screen and felt a pop. ... It wasn't a knee injury, but it's tough, you work so hard in rehab and have something else pop up. The good thing is, I know we've got a long summer and a lot to look forward to."

The 95-83 loss eliminated the Pacers from the playoff race.

"This was a must-win, and we came up short," George said. "Kind of the epitome of this whole season."

George returned April 5 after missing a little more than eight months with a broken right leg. He snapped the leg in a gruesome scene when he ran into a basketball stanchion during a Team USA scrimmage in August in Las Vegas.

The conventional wisdom then was that George would miss the season and return for the start of 2015-16. Instead, the Pacers found themselves delicately trying to balance playing it safe with their top player and pushing George to come back as soon as he was ready to go.

He returned to full practices in late February, then started lobbying behind the scenes to get back on the court in early April.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.