TIE-BREAKER SENDS CURRY TO ALL-STARS

Stephen Curry won a tiebreaker to join Golden State teammate Kevin Durant in the lineup for the NBA All-Star Game, while LeBron James and Kyrie Irving also gave Cleveland two starters.

Curry and Houston’s James Harden beat out Russell Westbrook for the two Western Conference backcourt spots Thursday in the new voting system that included players and media for the first time. They will join frontcourt choices Durant, Anthony Davis of New Orleans and Kawhi Leonard of San Antonio.

The rest of the East lineup for the Feb. 19 game in New Or- leans is Giannis Antetokounmpo of Milwaukee and Jimmy Butler of Chicago in the frontcourt and DeMar DeRozan of Toronto in the backcourt. He beat out Boston’s Isaiah Thomas in another tiebreaker.

Fan voting accounted for 50 percent in the new system, while current players and a media panel each made up 25 percent.

James is the leading scorer in All-Star Game history and is set to become just the fifth player to start at least 13 games. He said it meant something extra being the leading vote-getter among fans with nearly 1.9 million votes.

“From the standpoint of people enjoy the way I play the game, they respect the way I play the game and at this point in my career I’m still doing something right,” he said earlier Thursday. “Makes me proud, makes my family proud, and my support system, so it’s cool in that sense.”

He and Durant had the highest possible scores across all three voting groups, but the new process eliminated Chicago’s Dwyane Wade, Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid and Golden State’s Zaza Pachulia, who would have been elected by fans under the old format. /