NBA All-Star weekend is long over and the second half of the season has officially begun, but better late than never with my recap of the festivities!
Celebrity Game and Rising Star Challenge
To start the weekend we had the annual All-Star Celebrity Game. This year's game wasn't as competitive as we have seen before, as the game got out of hand by the second quarter. Regardless of the outcome, we all watch this game to see which celebrities have game and which ones just look silly playing ball.
The West won 58-38, led by Arne Duncan's 11 points and Kevin Hart's 5 points and 2 rebounds. Hart's performance was good enough to earn him the MVP honor for the second consecutive year. Overall I enjoyed the game, especially Kevin Hart's MVP acceptance speech.
The Rising Stars Challenge followed with the second edition of Team Shaq vs. Team Chuck. Shaq O'Neal had appeared to construct the better of the two teams, but that's why we play the game! Team Chuck dominated this one, as expected on the boards and inside, but also dominated the shooting statistics. Here are some telling stats from the game:
Team Shaq shot 9-32 from behind the arc and had 24 rebounds (7 offensive).
Team Chuck grabbed a whopping 51 rebounds (21 offensive) and made 17 of 32 three-pointers. We all figured that Chuck's squad would have the edge in rebounding, but who saw them lighting it up like that! Kyrie Irving had a fantastic performance with 32 points, 6 rebounds, and 6 assists. While Kenneth Faried stole the show with 40 points, 10 rebounds, and 2 assists; good enough to lead Team Chuck to a second straight win and grab this year's MVP honors. Looks like Charles Barkley gets TNT bragging rights for a another year.
MVP: Kenneth Faried (Team Chuck)
Team Chuck 163 Team Shaq 135
All-Star Saturday Night
The lineup for All-Star Saturday Night included the Sears Shooting Stars, Taco Bell Skills Challenge, Foot Locker Three-Point Contest, and the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest. This year there was an added twist, East vs. West. In each of the individual competitions there were six participants, four in the Shooting Stars, three from an Eastern Conference team and three from a Western Conference team. Each event had a team round which resulted in the top player from each conference (1st place out of three participants in the conference) advancing into the championship vs. the other conference winner. The three participants scores were added up for each conference and the conference with the better score received a set amount of points. The individual that won the event championship won himself the event's trophy and his conference ten additional points. Th Slam Dunk contest had the highest point totals for the team round and 55 for the championship, with and adding 10 points for each perfect dunk. If this sounds confusing don't worry, it will be clearer as we go through. It was for a good cause as the winning conference would have money donated to their representing charity.
Sears Shooting Stars
The night began in style, as four teams comprised of one current NBA player (Harden, Westbrook, Lopez, and Bosh), one current WNBA player, and one NBA legend took the court for the usual race against the clock to make six spread out shots, ending with the half-court shot, in as quick as possible. In the team round
Team Westbrook defeated
Team Harden while
Team Bosh defeated
Team Lopez. The combined time of Teams Westbrook and Harden gave the West the better team round score, resulting in 20 points. In the Championship it was
Team Bosh taking home the crown with a time of 1 min 29 sec and earning the East 10 points. This event is just a fun event to get the night started and this year's didn't miss a beat. Maybe some find it redudant and old, but I enjoy the array of shooting and the new East vs. West format added a sense of electric to the atmosphere to begin a festive night.
Competition Grade: B
Team Bosh was led by Chris Bosh, Swin Cash, and Dominique Wilkins.
Score: West 20, East 10
Taco Bells Skill Challenge
This competition had a nice mix of young and old talent this year. In the team round
Jrue Holiday stole the spotlight for the East by putting up a time of 29.3 seconds, easily ousting
Brandon Knight and
Jeff Teague. The hometown man,
Jeremy Lin struggled in his first round run with a time of 35.8 seconds. While
Damien Lillard put up the best time of anyone in the first round by cruising through the course in 28.8 seconds. Defending champ
Tony Parker struggled, finishing with a time of 48.7 seconds. Parker's struggles gave the East 30 points for winning the team round, but it was the West who got the additional 10. In the finals
Damien Lillard took adavantage of an opening left by
Holiday, marking a time of 29.8 seconds and winning by a comfortable 5.8 second margin. I was disappointed with Parker's performance, but also impressed by both of the finalists.
Competition Grade: B-
Winner: Damien Lillard (POR)
Score: West 30, East 40
Foot Locker Three-Point Contest
For the third event of the night, six of the finest Three shooters in the NBA took their place in the spotlight and battled it out over 25 balls in five racks.
Steph Curry started off cold, missing eight of his first ten shots, but then heated up down the stretch hitting 3-5 on the Rack 3, 5-5 on Rack 4, and 4-5 on Rack 5, along with all three money balls (2 points each) for a total of 17.
Ryan Anderson quickly ousted my favorite for the competition with a score of 18. Anderson started off on fire hitting eight of his first ten and then having a perfect Rack 4, but despite hitting four money balls his struggles from Racks 3 and 5 would end up eliminating him. Coming out of the West was
Matt Bonner who scored 20 points by putting together a very consistent round; making at least three shots in each of the first four racks along with three money balls.
Among the East shooters
Kyrie Irving impressed with a solid round of 18 points, made 11 of 15 shots (2 money balls) in the last three racks. Irving's performance would hold up to advance him to the championship with
Paul George struggling to only get ten points and
Steve Novak cooling off after a hot start, 8-10 with 2 money balls on the first two racks, to finish with a score of 17. In the finals it was
Bonner vs.
Irving, where the young superstar would walk away with the title.
Irving's championship round of 23 marked as the best of anyone in this year's competition.
Matt Bonner hit four of the five money balls and had three racks of making 4-5 shots, but this still wasn't enough to beat Irving. I enjoyed this competition the most on the night and was really impressed by
Kyrie Irving's performance, he is definately going to be a superstar for a long time! Other than
Paul George's ten I liked the competitiveness from each conference. Concerning the East vs. West, the scores of
Curry,
Anderson, and
Bonner gave the West the team score; but
Irving's victory earned the East ten points.
Competition Grade: A-
Winner: Kyrie Irving (CLE)
Score: West 70, East 50
Sprite Slam Dunk Contest
The field for this year's Slam Dunk Contest looked to be jammed-pack with creativity and excitment. Well, I was one of many who ended up being disappointed and somewhat bored during the show.
Gerald Green was my pick to win it, but his second dunk failure blew up and idea of that.
Green's first dunk was flawless, successfully converting off the side of the backboard. His second dunk started by cutting off the net and was primed for a roof-rocking response, one problem - dunk attempt failed.
Green tried to dunk the ball twice and after many tries was unsuccessful.
James White was a major disappointment, but not to my surprise. I suspected he wouldn't do much and other than taking off from the free throw line I was right. He started off with his "Flight White" campaign by having a lane of flight attendants dressed in Knicks colors to run through on his two-handed dunk from the free throw line. His second dunk was also from the line, but after numerous attempts it went unlanded.
Terrence Ross had a solid first dunk, and after the barrage of misses by his competition he landed a pretty 360 spin-around dunk to easily get him into the finals.
Kenneth Faried was the first West dunker to go and impressed! His first dunk wasn't the best choice for a dunk contest, but his second one - WOW!
Faried pulled out an off the backboard catch and in-between-legs dunk on his second try but was not rewarded with a spot in the finals.
Eric Bledsoe can throw it down, but he didn't exactly show that on Saturday night. He had two solid dunks but his inability to convert them took the crowd out of it with the missses. I was also surprised we didn't see Chris Paul or Jamal Crawford be called on to assist. The defending champ
Jeremy Evans brought the energy that the crowd needed. To start his night he dunked over former Jazz center Mark Eaton and followed that up with a 360, two-ball dunk.
Evans barely advanced to the finals but in my eyes he was the right choice.
That set up a
Ross vs.
Evans final. The finals came down to a fan vote between each of the contestants two dunks.
Jeremy Evans began with dunking over a self-made portrait of himself doing the same dunk. Both the dunk and his artistic ability impressed.
Ross responded with a off-backboard tribute to Vince Carter. In their last dunks of the night,
Evans caught an alley-oop from Dahntay Jones and briefly floated on way to slamming it home.
Terrence Ross wrapped the contest up by dunking over a small ball boy, the kid had no idea or practice, to win the late roar of the crowd and recieve 58% of the fan vote to win.
Terrence Ross deserved to win the competition, not as much because of his dunks, but because he was able to get a rather docile Houston crowd on their feet and draw the most enegry out of the six dunkers. For the East-West battle, both conferences earned 20 bonus points (2 perfect dunks each), the West won the team round with the debacle of
Gerald Green and
James White and earned 50 points.
Ross's victory earned the East 55 points. The dunk contest majorily lacked energy and crowd enthusiasm and there was too many misses by the participants. Hopefully we see better in 2014.
Competition Grade: C
Winner: Terrence Ross (TOR)
Score: West 140, East 125
Congrats to
Team Bosh,
Damien Lillard,
Kyrie Irving, and
Terrence Ross on their competition victories!
The West won State Farm All-Star Saturday Night by a score of 140-125 and earns their two charities $350,000! While the East charities still receive $150,000. NBA fans got our yearly treat of a night filled with skill and style competitions and this year four charities also get to win!
2013 NBA All-Star Game
To conclude the festive weekend in Houston was the 2013 All-Star Game. The Game's brightest stars finally got to take the court and put on a show on Sunday night. As expected this was a high-scoring affair that featured a lot of 3's, dunks, and little defense. The West led by four at the half and would take that lead into the fourth quarter. It was a tight back and forth quarter that saw the West outscore the East 35-34, sealing the 143-138 victory.
Carmelo Anthony led the East with 26 points and 12 rebounds and
Lebron had 19 points, 3 rebounds, and 5 assists. Leading the West was
Chris Paul who posted 20 points, 15 assists, and 4 steals to grab the MVP.
Kevin Durant had 30 points and
Kobe had 9 points, 4 rebounds, 8 assists, and 2 late-game blocks of Lebron!
Kyrie Irving capped of his eventful and scene-breaking weekend with 15 points, 3 rebounds, and 4 assists.
MVP: Chris Paul (West)
Final Score: West 143 East 138
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Since his lone year at Duke, Kyrie Irving has always had high NBA expectations. He was drafted first overall in 2011 and made strides to put together a successful rookie campaign, earning him Rookie of the Year. Despite his fantastic performance the Cavaliers struggled to 21-45 record and went unnoticed for most of the season. Coming in to this season the expectations for the Cavs weren't much higher, but the excitement for Irving's second season is what kept the fan base buzzing. Cavs fans and the rest of the NBA held their collective breaths when Irving broke his right hand after slapping it against a padded wall out of frustration in a mid-July practice. But fear not he was healthy for the season opener and got of to a hot start to the 2012-2013 season, averaging 22.9 points and 5.6 assists thru the first ten games. He would miss the next three weeks do to an index finger injury, but returned in the middle of December. His month averages since his return have been 22.5 points and 5.5 assists in 11 December games, 25.8 points and 5.4 assists in 14 January games, and 21.6 points and 6.2 assists in nine February games (Stats as of 2/24/13).
Despite Kyrie's solid first ten games the Cavs limped to a 2-8 record. In his absence they didnt fare any better going 2-9. In Irving's first game back from injury he lit the Lakers up for 28 points on 11-21 shooting, 4-6 from three with 11 assists to lead his Cavaliers to their fifth win of the season. After fracturing a facial bone in a hard fall against the Bucks, Irving donned a black, batman-esque, protective mask against the Knicks where he would have a career high 41 points, making 15 of 25 shots, 5-8 from three. Not only did this give the media a cool Batman image of Kyrie, but he became the youngest player in NBA history to score 40 points in Madison Square Garden. Up to this point Irving has had a sensational sophomore season posting 23.5 points and 5.7 assists per game and with a PER of 22.73. He rightly earned his first NBA All-Star selection, a second appearance in the Rising Stars Challenge, and a first appearnce in the Foot Locker Three-Point Contest. 
In the Foot Locker Three Point Contest Irving amazed with a score of 18 (11-15 on the last three racks with 2 money balls) in the team round, which was good enough to advance to the finals. In the finals he bettered his first round score by posting a contest-high 23 points in his final round, earning him this year's Three Point crown. Irving's championship winning round consisted of making all five shots on the first rack, four out of five on the second rack, a perfect third rack, hitting three of five on each of the last two racks, and hitting his first three money balls.
