All Star game: Eastern pride

Kyrie Irving

By Ryan Rodriguez

Last weekend’s NBA All-Star game saw the Eastern Conference, despite how bad they have been this year, pull out a 163-155 over the Western Conference in a thoroughly entertaining game. People always whine about the lack of defense, but they need to realize that exhibition games like this are to see dunks, deep threes, dunks, random 1-0n-1 battles (Kyrie vs Dwight), and more dunks. Throw in an 18-point comeback by the East and a fourth quarter that was close throughout, and you get an All-Star game that lives up to the billing.

Thoughts on the game

- Kyrie Irving stole the show last night, owning the fourth quarter as he has done numerous times for the Cavs, and leading the East on their comeback with 15 points and 4 assists in the fourth. What stuck out to me were Kyrie’s handles (some of the best and smoothest in the league) and his layup ability. I counted 6 different layups last night where he put so much art and skill into them that they were truly breathtaking, including a sick tear drop after going 1 on 1 with Dwight and a tremendous reverse layup where he completely faked out Anthony Davis.

- He also had some nice assists to LeBron, including a sick lob that LeBron finished with a 180 dunk. Sadly for Cleveland fans, they will only see this connection in All Star games as I see no way LeBron heads back to that poorly run franchise with their loud-mouthed, retarded owner.

- LeBron seemed content to be an ancillary member of this game, really only getting involved offensively for dunks (which were still abundant) and to clank threes (0-7). Several of the dunks left fans wondering why he wouldn’t just give us one dunk contest, but perhaps the best feat of his night was a missed alley oop from Paul George where he hit his elbow on the backboard causing him to lose the ball. Seeing a person hit their elbow on the backboard on an oop attempt was truly amazing, let me add.

- Where LeBron did show a lot of energy was on the defensive end, jumping passing lanes early and getting several steals off of it.Speaking of the first quarter, Blake Griffin was truly the star of it, as he threw down nine dunks in the quarter en route to setting the record for most field goals in a quarter (9), half (10), and game (19). You might want the teams to play defense, but when no defense leads to dunk after dunk like Blake had in the first, you need to stop complaining. Blake finished the game tied for the most points with 38.

- The man he tied with was none other than Kevin Durant, but this was not the type of game I expected from the Durantula. He shot 14-27 and 6-17 from three, two numbers I expected to look better especially in a game with no defense. I know he took a lot of deep threes, but it was a little sad to see him miss so many of them.

- On top of that, we didn’t even get the LeBron vs KD 1-on-1 battle that we expected. It only happened on back to back possessions in the fourth, where KD hit a step back three on LeBron, and then Bron tried to take KD, saw an open man and freaking passed it. The 1-on-1 they had in their real game a couple weeks ago was way better than this.

- Speaking of people who you didn’t expect to struggle behind the arc, Stephen Curry went 2-11 from three last night, and the worst part about it was how many looked like LeBron was shooting them. I picked Curry to be MVP because I thought he would just drop deeper and deeper threes as the game went on, but sadly he just didn’t have the range all weekend.

- You know who did though, my boy Melo. Melo is rising to be quite possibly the best exhibition game shooter I have ever seen. He dropped an All Star game record 8 threes last night, breaking the old record of 6 in the third quarter and giving the East their first comfortable lead, 159-155, with just over a minute left in the fourth with his eighth. For all the great scorers I have seen, no one seems to benefit more than Melo from being around a bunch of world class players, as he consistently performs the catch and shoot three point specialist better than anyone.

- Slam Dunk champion John Wall brought the goods to the All Star game as well, executing another sick double pump on a fast break in the first half, and then somehow ducking under a defender’s arms while in the air on a fastbreak before throwing it down with authority. Hop on the Wiz bandwagon now or risk being left behind when this team takes off in a year or two. Wall is that legit to me.

- Joakim Noah continuously cracked me up in the first half, as he seemed to think he was still in a Bulls jersey, flying around on defense, always being in his defensive crouch, and even checking point guards on switches. If there was one player in this game who didn’t know how to/couldn’t really adjust his game to an exhibition it was Jo, but I love him for it.

- Speaking of funny, early in the third quarter Kevin Love threw one of his patented full court outlet passes for a dunk to Blake, so when Roy Hibbert attempted to do the same but only got the ball to half court where it was intercepted, I could only laugh. Mr. Hibbert, there are only two guys who can do that in the league and you aren’t one of them, but thank you so much for trying.

- On a fashion note, I want to get one of the All Star warm up jackets. They are sick, especially when you have someone like Dirk or LeBron who has their conference letter filled up with all of their accolades throughout their career.

- On a legends’ note, it was sad but still cool to see Kobe sitting smack dab in the middle of the Western Conference’s bench during the game. I’m glad he came and was visible throughout the weekend, because it’s going to feel weird when he is no longer around, even if I hated him while I was growing up. I hope he comes back next year looking mostly like the Kobe we all know.

- And the final thought of the day goes to the ultimate legend, Bill Russell. The champ celebrated his 80th birthday this week and Magic Johnson got the whole crowd to sing him Happy Birthday in between the end of the first and second quarters. This was followed by the coolest moment of the weekend, as every All Star went up and shook Russell’s hand. Watching these contemporary greats look in awe at the first great of their sport was really a cool moment. I am also starting to give Russell a higher and higher place in my top players of all time simply because his resume in regards to winning is truly remarkable. He won back-to-back state titles in high school, won back-to-back national championships in college, and an NBA title in 11 of his 13 seasons in the Association. Add that to anecdotes like how he changed the way defense was played, tapped blocks to teammates, his being one of the best outlet passers of all time, and above all, how he moulded his game to cover the flaws of his teammates tell me that stats can’t truly measure his impact. In a sport where the best player usually wins the title, to win as many times as he did, even in a smaller (both team and player height wise) and whiter league is really mind-blowing. This tweet I ran across this morning probably sums up, to me, why Russell should never be diminished as top 10 or even, possibly, a top 5 player of all time:

“I don’t think modern fans understand Bill Russell’s ruthlessness as a player and the blood thirsty approach he inspired in his teammates.” Roland Lazenby (@lazenby).

Well now it’s back to the regular season, MVP talk, playoff races, and some Sorry for Jabari action.