Covington gains D-League MVP
NEW ORLEANS — With six minutes remaining in a tight NBA Development League AllStar Game on Saturday afternoon, Rockets rookie forward Robert Covington had 11 points but had not scored in the second half of a game in which everyone was scoring.
But he was just warming up. When he was through, he had poured in 22 of his D-League All-Star-record 33 points in six minutes, carrying his Prospects team past the Futures stars 145-142 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
Covington made 12 of 23 shots in the game, going 4-of-8 from 3-point territory to set the record and win the game’s Most Valuable Player honor.
Then later Saturday night at the Smoothie King Center, the Eastern Conference trio of Toronto’s Terrence Ross, Indiana’s Paul George and Washington’s John Wall won the NBA All-Star slam-dunk contest.
Wall capped the triumph by leaping over a Wizards mascot while grabbing the ball from in front of the mascot’s head, then throwing down a double-pump, reverse, two-handed jam.
The dunk eliminated Sacramento’s Ben McLemore, the last hope for the Western Conference.
“The slam dunk has returned,” said Julius Erving, one of the NBA’s famous dunkers and one of the judges.
For the first time, the contest was a competition between conferences. Along with McLemore, the West was represented by Portland’s Damian Lillard and Golden State’s Harrison Barnes.
Earlier, San Antonio’s Marco Belinelli won the 3-point contest, and the tandem of Lillard and Utah’s Trey Burke won the skills challenge.
And Team Bosh, consisting of Miami’s Chris Bosh, former NBA star Dominique Wilkins and WNBA player Swin Cash, won the shooting stars event.
Belinelli, the Italian who previously played for New Orleans, needed to win a tiebreaker round in the final to beat Bradley Beal.
The Washington AllStar had made his final six shots, including two “money balls” worth two points each, to tie Belinelli’s initial final-round score of 19. Belinelli then racked up an event-high score of 24 for the win.
There were four shooters from each conference.
Belinelli had a score of 19 to win the West, beating Lillard’s 18. Beal had a score of 21 to win the East, eclipsing defending champ Kyrie Irving’s 16.
“I was a little bit nervous at the beginning and I think that I shot like two airballs,” Belinelli said. “But in the end I was focused. I really cared about this trophy.”