Notebook: Carroll shrugs off George’s complaint about lax officiating

The DeMarre Carroll-Paul George matchup is turning into a war of words as well as one of skills.

George, the Indiana Pacers all-star forward, suggested Carroll, the Raptors’ most aggressive defender, was the beneficiary of lax officiating in Thursday’s Game 3 because Carroll got away with treating George as a tackling dummy at times. Carroll responded Friday in a way that is sure to irk George even more.

“Playoff basketball is physical,” Carroll said. “If it was a cakewalk, there would be a lot of people in the playoffs, right? So I feel like I’m just going to continue to play the way I’ve played him and let him talk to the refs, and I’ll talk to the refs after the season.” Staying the course: Having made one slight change to his starting lineup, Indiana Pacers coach Frank Vogel won’t commit to the new look for Saturday’s Game 4. Vogel was — not surprisingly — non-committal on Friday about replacing Lavoy Allen with Myles Turner as he did to start the second half of Thursday’s Game 3. Turner, a slightly-built rookie, has had more of an offensive impact on the series than Allen, but he’s been overmatched on the glass by Toronto’s frontcourt.

Odd men out: Norm Powell is the odd man out of the Raptors rotation at the moment, and Terrence Ross isn’t far behind. With Carroll off his minutes limit, Powell played just three mop-up minutes in Toronto’s Game 3 win and Ross played less than 10. Coach Dwane Casey said after using 10 players in Game 1 that he needed to pare his rotation to allow players to find a rhythm each night.