On Sunday, Feb. 18, the National Basketball Association (NBA) hosted its annual All-Star Game, but this game had a whole new look to it. This year, the NBA debuted a new draft-style format to make the teams. The two team captains, Lebron James and Stephen Curry, were chosen by the votes of fans, and the starters of each team were determined by fans and NBA players. Head coaches were able to choose the rest of the roster from the pool of players who were drafted for this game.
Team Lebron included a mighty roster with Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving and Russell Westbrook as the starters. Team Steph’s roster still didn’t fall too behind in star power with DeMar DeRozan, James Harden, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid playing with Curry.
In fact, Team Steph held the scoring advantage for the majority of the game. At the end of the first quarter, Team Steph held an 11-point advantage over Team Lebron (42-31) and by halftime, Team Steph was still up 78-76.
The half ended with the top scorers being LeBron at 15 points, and Team Steph’s Klay Thompson with 15 points and Karl-Anthony Towns with 13. But the offensive excessiveness did not stop there. In the second half, James went up and under the basket, switching hands for a showy layup. Victor Oladipo also put on a show by pulling up with a nasty backwards dunk.
By the last quarter, Team Steph held the lead over Team LeBron with a score of 112-109. By the last six minutes, Team Steph was still ahead 134-125, and it seemed as though the game was in the bag for Curry. But of course, with Team Lebron’s prideful MVP-player lineup, they wouldn’t give up without a fight.
After Team Lebron brought the score to a smaller deficit, Westbrook got fouled as he went up for a shot, scoring an “and-one” play to bring it down to a one-point (140-139) Irving, James, Durant, Westbrook and Paul George were all in for Team LeBron in the finals minutes of the game, and DeRosen, Embiid, Curry, Antetokounmpo and Harden for Team Steph. With 40 seconds left, Team Steph was up one point, but that lead was quickly snatched by Team Lebron through the chemistry between none other than Irving and James. With James trailing behind him in the paint, Irving quickly passed it to his old teammate to put up a shot to take the lead. Next, with 10.7 seconds left, Westbrook made a layup to put Team LeBron up by three.
On the final possession, Curry tried to pull up for a clutch shot to tie the game, but he was denied by the double team of Durant and James, preventing him from even getting a shot off. Team LeBron won 148-145.
James finished with 29 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists in a close finish to win the NBA All-Star Game MVP.