SAN FRANCISCO — The verdicts had been blended, as can be anticipated.
The NBA’s All-Star Sport mini-tournament is now full, Shaq’s OGs getting the win within the four-team, three-game occasion the place the primary squad to attain 40 factors in every recreation received the victory.
Some gamers appreciated it. Some did not. Some appeared ambivalent. It was entertaining and had moments the place issues turned aggressive, although it tended to lean towards extra of the identical highlight-reel-type play that has been the norm in All-Star Video games for years.
“I feel it was step in the best course to reinvigorate the sport not directly,” All-Star MVP Stephen Curry of the host Golden State Warriors stated. “And you then tinker with it once more subsequent 12 months and see what adjustments you may make. I do not need to examine it to another period as a result of the world has modified, life is completely different, the way in which individuals eat basketball is completely different. So, it isn’t going to appear to be it used to. Nevertheless it nonetheless may be enjoyable for everyone.”
The league went to the match after years of asking gamers to take the All-Star Sport extra significantly. Final 12 months’s 211-186 recreation in Indianapolis was the final straw for the league, and the match started taking form.
There have been some numbers suggesting a bit extra defence was performed final 12 months. The 2024 All-Star Sport noticed the groups shoot 56 per cent from the sphere, in comparison with 50 per cent this 12 months. And there have been three blocked pictures, complete, in final 12 months’s 48-minute recreation; this 12 months’s recreation had three blocks within the first three minutes of the primary semifinal.
“I feel it’s attention-grabbing. It’s completely different,” New York’s Jalen Brunson stated after his group — Kenny’s Younger Stars — misplaced within the semifinal spherical. “The video games are form of quick. I just like the format. It’s one thing new, one thing distinctive. Possibly rating to 50, perhaps. Nevertheless it’s attention-grabbing, one thing new like that. You by no means actually know what to anticipate, nevertheless it was all proper.”
All the thought has been met with skepticism from the outset, first for the notion of turning the sport right into a match with an eight-man roster after which for the extra element of getting 24 All-Stars, as ordinary, however including the Rising Stars occasion winner — a group with no All-Stars, no less than not any chosen by followers, media or coaches — into the competitors.
Boston’s Jayson Tatum, who scored 15 factors to assist Shaq’s OGs within the ultimate, stated he wasn’t positive about whether or not the Rising Stars ought to have been a part of the occasion.
“Clearly completely satisfied for these guys,” Tatum stated. “However there’s something to be stated, it’s form of a giant deal to be an All-Star and play Sunday evening. Some guys get snubbed and different guys must work actually, actually exhausting to make the All-Star Sport. Enjoying on Sunday evening is particular, and it at all times has been. I’m not saying that that was the best or fallacious choice.
“Trial run, I suppose,” he added. “They’ll proceed to make tweaks or no matter.”
It was uncommon, for sure. Miami guard Tyler Herro, the league’s new 3-point shootout champion, performed eight minutes in his All-Star debut. He did not even want a towel when he left the ground for the evening.
“It was a brief, fast burst, actually,” Herro stated. “Broke like not even a half-sweat.”
The Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James and Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards could not play due to accidents. James stated earlier than the video games that he was inquisitive about how it might all prove. Edwards did not appear to look after the entire notion. Mainly, if he will play exhausting, he will do it with one thing at stake.
“I’ve by no means been an All-Star Sport kind of man, to love take it severe and go on the market and attempt to guard any person and get a cease,” Edwards stated. “I’ve by no means been that kind of man. I simply put it aside for the Timberwolves season, just about.”
San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama made his stance clear for the previous couple of weeks after getting picked. He was going to play exhausting, and did — even attempting to lock down Kyrie Irving, one of many recreation’s premier ballhandlers, out on the wing throughout one possession within the ultimate.
“It felt like there have been excessive stakes within the recreation,” Wembanyama stated. “It was higher than anticipated. I feel the format labored very well.”
And social media did not appear to care for the way the title recreation was stopped to pay tribute to TNT and its 4 many years of NBA broadcasting, with some saying they’d have most popular that portion happen between video games.
The sport stopped with the OGs main the International Stars 11-1, and no basketball was performed for 18 minutes. By way of precise on-court time, if the ultimate was timed, there was simply shy of 12 minutes — an actual NBA quarter — truly performed.
Rankings will come out within the subsequent day or so and that can inform an even bigger story of the match — whether or not followers watched and in the event that they appreciated all of it.
“I don’t know the way it seemed on TV,” Curry stated. “However I believed it was a step in the best course.”
