Team Lebron rallies for All-star triumph

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Lebron James was trading lob passes with Dwyane Wade again, one last time. Catching lobs from Kyrie Irving once again, too. And after making a stepback 3-pointer late, he stared down Joel Embiid to send a message without saying a word.

Oh, this mattered to James — and Team Lebron as well.

Team Lebron, down by 20 in the second half, finally got firing and went on to beat Team Giannis 178-164 in the All-star Game on Sunday night. MVP Kevin Durant scored 31 points for Team Lebron, the one that James drafted and led to victory in the captain’s-choice format for a second consecutive season.

“You put me on the floor, I love to compete,” James said in the postgame interview room. “I’m a competitor, no matter what it is. I was competing to see if I could get to this table first.”

He wasn’t kidding. He then turned to NBA spokesman Mark Broussard, asked if he was the first player to get into the room and grinned when told he was.

“See what I’m talking about?” James said.

Klay Thompson scored 20 points, and James and Kawhi Leonard each had 19 for the winners.

“It’s all sweet to me,” Durant said after getting his second All-star MVP award, to go with the one he claimed in 2012.

“It’s hard to rank because everything’s special. But it’s cool to be out there with some of the best players to ever play the game. And to win MVP in front of my family and friends is pretty sweet.”

Giannis Antetokounmpo — the first-time captain — scored a game-high 38 points on 17-for-23 shooting. Paul George and Khris Middleton each scored 20 points for Team Giannis, which got 17 apiece from Stephen Curry and Russell Westbrook.

“Just being the leader of a team,itwasn’tastoughasi thought,” Antetokounmpo said. “My teammates, the guys in the locker room, encouraged me to step up and take it serious and play hard.”

The highlights, as expected, were absurdly good.

Curry slammed the ball off the floor on a first-half fast break and watched it ricochet toward the rim with an apex that flirted with the top of the backboard. Too high for most humans — but Antetokounmpo isn’t most humans. The freakishly long Greek star slammed Curry’s unconventional alley-oop pass home, with both benches reacting in disbelief.

Curry then slammed an alley-oop on the last play of the game, to himself, for a dunk that closed the scoring in his hometown.

“I thought we put on a great show tonight,” said Kemba Walker of Charlotte.

Typically, it was not a defensive showcase.

Team Giannis set an Allstar record with 23 baskets in the first quarter, topping the mark of 22 set on four other occasions — by both the West and the East in the first quarter of the 2017 game, and by the West in both the second and third quarters of the 2016 game.

The 53 points tied a one-quarter All-star record as well, matching the total by the West in the third quarter of the 2016 games and by the East in the first quarter of the 2017 game. Butwhenitwastimetoget competitive, things tightened up considerably, at least by All-star standards.

But when Team Lebron used a flurry of 3s to get back into it in the third quarter, everyone on the bench was standing — sometimes running from the bench and onto the court during play, the celebrations a bit more exuberant than what’s usually allowed.

“We got the win,” said Houston’s James Harden, who scored 12 for Team Lebron. “That’s all that matters.”

And the All-star farewells for Miami’s Wade and Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki— the adds to the game by commissioner Adam Silver, in honor of their career bodies of work — were festive, as everyone wanted.

Nowitzki entered late in the first quarter and made his first three shots — all of them 3-pointers — before heading back to the bench. Wade checked in not long after Nowitzki took the floor, then started the second half and achieved his primary missions for his last All-star Game as a player.

He got an alley-oop lob from James. And he threw an alley-oop lob to James.

Wade dunked, James dunked, and the close friends who entered the NBA together in 2003 and won championships with Miami in 2012 and 2013 got a couple more moments to savor.

Wade finished with seven points in 10 minutes. Nowitzki never returned after his nine-point, four-minute opening stint. When the third quarter ended, every player gathered behind them as Wade and Nowitzki were honored with commemorative jerseys at midcourt.

“Thank you to the commissioner and the NBA for allowing us to both be on this stage again,” Nowitzki said.

Added Wade: “Exactly what Dirk said. We’re very thankful for this opportunity. … The game is in great hands. It’s easy to walk away right now.”