Portland Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard and small forward Evan Turner had some loud praise for Paul George of the Oklahoma City Thunder, who delivered a 47-point triple-double in 43 minutes to give his team a 120-111 win over the visitors. While the race for the Most Valuable Player is believed to be a two-horse one, the Blazers teammates have no doubt who they'd vote as an MVP.

“He's on a different level,” said Lillard, according to Royce Young of ESPN. “After watching him over the last 10 games or so, I catch a lot of their games, and then seeing him tonight, that dude is MVP. If they keep this up, he's MVP.”

George is coming off ringing back-to-back monster games, having put up 45 points in his last one, bringing the Thunder to win 11 of their last 12 outings.

George's 47 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists combined with Russell Westbrook's 21 points, 14 rebounds, and 11 assists to make them the first teammates in NBA history to log 20-point triple-doubles in the same game.

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“It was unreal,” said Turner. “Everybody is going crazy for Giannis (Antetokounmpo) and James (Harden). Everybody I probably went up against, and no disrespect to other teams, they're unbelievable, Paul is the best that we probably went up against all year. He's at a completely different level. It's hard to even explain … He's just in a great groove. He's in a great groove. He's playing great. They're on a roll. I've never performed at an MVP level, I've seen a few, but he's an MVP in my personal opinion.”

George is also in the running for Defensive Player of the Year, but if he keeps up these types of performances, there's no reason he would be out of the MVP conversation with a late surge through the last third of the regular season.