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Tim BontempsESPN
CLEVELAND — The two kids from Akron stole the show at Sunday night’s All-Star Game.
Stephen Curry put on a shooting clinic all night, hitting 16 3-pointers and scoring 50 points, while LeBron James hit an absurd one-legged turnaround jumper to clinch the victory for Team LeBron over Team Durant, 163-160, in a game as exciting as the rest of this All-Star Weekend was not.
On a night when the NBA honored its 75 greatest players, two of them — Curry and James— put on displays worthy of the occasion.
Curry was eventually named All-Star Game MVP for the first time in his illustrious career.
After setting the first-half record with eight triples, Curry brought the crowd — which had loudly booed the Golden State Warriors star before the game — to its feet when he nailed five straight 3-pointers early in the third quarter, including one on three straight possessions.
He then hit his 15th triple — more than anyone has ever made in any NBA game — at the end of a passing sequence that saw him pass it to James, who threw it to Nikola Jokic, who passed to Giannis Antetokounmpo, who then swung it to Curry in the corner. Curry then let it fly, and fully turned around to celebrate before the ball softly fell through the net.
During the next timeout, Curry said into the microphone he was wearing for TNT, “Can someone tell me what the record is for points?”
Ultimately, Curry “only” wound up with 50, missing a couple of 3-pointers in the fourth quarter that would’ve allowed him to surpass the 52 points Anthony Davis scored to set the record in 2017 before James ended it with his dagger over Zach LaVine.
Their exploits came after taking part in the NBA’s 75th anniversary celebration, as the league honored the 75 greatest players in its history. A large group picture of those who were in attendance was taken inside the arena before the game began.
They were then honored during halftime with a ceremony that was emceed by Oscar-winning director Spike Lee and included a video narrated by Oscar-winning actor Forrest Whitaker and then saw every player honored by position — beginning with forwards, followed by centers and ending with guards. The last player announced was Michael Jordan, who drew the biggest cheer of the night.
The game itself, which used the “Elam Ending” for the third-straight time, brought the same level of intensity and competition to the final moments of the game this year that it did in that game.
The game itself used the format first utilized in Chicago two years ago, the “Elam Ending,” which brought the same level of intensity and competition to the final moments of the game this year that it did in its debut in 2020.
After the two teams played each of the first three quarters for charity — with the winner of each individual quarter earning $100,000 for their respective charity (Team LeBron for Kent State’s I Promise Scholars Program and Team Durant playing for the Greater Cleveland Food Bank), the fourth quarter was played to a target score.
During introductions, it came as no surprise that James, who grew up about about 40 miles south in Akron, received a massive ovation from the fans he has played in front of for 11 of his 18-plus NBA seasons — letting out a massive roar and raising his arms to the crowd as they did so.
It was equally expected that the two Golden State Warriors stars honored Sunday night — Curry, who did play, and Draymond Green, who did not — were roundly booed after playing James and the Cavaliers four straight years in the NBA Finals from 2015-18, winning three of them.
Team LeBron won the first quarter 47-45, thanks to Luka Doncic scoring the team’s final six points of the quarter. Team Durant came back and won the second quarter, 49-46 — despite a record-setting eight first-half 3-pointers from Stephen Curry — to take a 94-93 halftime lead. The two teams then tied in the third quarter, thanks to a heady defensive play by Antetokounmpo late in the quarter.
That left the score at 139-138 in favor of Team Durant heading into the fourth, meaning that the target score was 163 points — 24 more than the total from the team leading after three, in a nod to the late Kobe Bryant, and setting up James’ final heroics after Joel Embiid and Antetokounmpo traded baskets throughout the fourth quarter.
For the second straight year, Team Durant was without its captain, as Kevin Durant was unable to play in Sunday’s game due to the MCL sprain that’s sidelined him for the past month. Durant was originally scheduled to attend the game, despite his injury, but did not after the death of his grandmother this weekend. Draymond Green (back, calf) and James Harden (hamstring) also missed the game due to injury, with LaMelo Ball, Dejounte Murray and Jarrett Allen, respectively, being tapped to serve as their replacements.
Donovan Mitchell announced just a couple of hours before tip Sunday that he, too, wouldn’t play, due to an upper respiratory illness that kept him from participating in anything Saturday, and ultimately the All-Star Game itself. Chris Paul, meanwhile, will miss the next 6-to-8 weeks, at least, after suffering an avulsion fracture in his right thumb in Wednesday’s win over the Houston Rockets. And yet, despite that injury, he played for a little more than two minutes in the first quarter of Sunday’s game, missing his only shot (a left-handed layup) before sitting down for the night.
Team LeBron improved to 5-0 since the NBA went away from the traditional East-West format of the All-Star Game in 2018, and instead adopted the current setup of having the top vote getter from each conference draft teams from the game’s remaining 22 participants.
