Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)

All-stars in Salt Lake primed to soar, score

‘It never gets old’ as defense gets day off

- By Tim Reynolds

SALT LAKE CITY — The fans in Salt Lake City used to serenade Donovan Mitchell with “MVP” chants when he played for the Utah Jazz, a sign of their appreciati­on and respect.

He plays for Cleveland now. But he wouldn’t mind hearing those cries again Sunday.

The 72nd NBA All-star Game is Sunday night with almost all of the league’s biggest names set to take part in Utah.

Captains Lebron James of the Los Angeles Lakers and Giannis Antetokoun­mpo of the Milwaukee Bucks will pick their teams before the game, leaving Team Lebron coach Michael Malone of the Denver Nuggets and Team Giannis coach Joe Mazzulla of the Boston Celtics about five minutes to come up with an actual game plan.

“It never gets old,” Antetokoun­mpo said Saturday. “Every day, every time I step to my locker and I see my jersey with my name and I’m around all these great players, which are the best players in the world, it’s always a great feeling. I never take it for granted. God has blessed me enough to be seven times an All-star so far, and this might be my last one, so I try to enjoy to the fullest and appreciate every moment with the best players in the world.”

And most of the best are indeed in Salt Lake City.

There’s James, who just passed Kareem Abdul-jabbar to become the NBA’S leading scorer. There’s Dallas’ Luka Doncic and Philadelph­ia’s Joel Embiid, currently No. 1 and No. 2 in the NBA scoring race, both of them just over 33 points per game. Antetokoun­mpo and James also are averaging at least 30 points, as are Portland’s Damian Lillard, Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-alexander and Boston’s Jayson Tatum.

There’s never any real defense in these games until the fourth quarter, when players get serious, and there inevitably will be a bunch of them scoring a bunch of points. After all, that’s been a trend this season: 20 times a player has scored 50 points in a game, a list topped by Mitchell scoring 71 for the Cavaliers against Chicago on Jan. 2.

He isn’t flat-out going for the MVP, but acknowledg­ed that he’s thought about it.

“That would be nice,” Mitchell said. “I’m not going to try and shoot every shot, but close to every shot. Just have fun. That’s the biggest thing is kind of going into these spaces and really appreciati­ng the moment.”

Mcclung soars to slam dunk crown

Mac Mcclung might have single-handedly restored the shine on a dunk contest that has been widely panned in recent years, while Lillard won the 3-point contest.

Mcclung, the 6-foot-2-inch Philadelph­ia guard on a two-way contract, defeated New Orleans’ Trey Murphy III in the finals of the dunk contest, culminatin­g an NBA All-star Saturday that may have finally answered the question as to whether what used to be the league’s signature event can be glitzy again.

A 540-degree dunk — not a 360, a 540, him doing one-and-a-half rotations in the air — was his third perfect score of the night out of four dunks, but by the time the judges’ scores came up it was already decided.

Lillard claimed the 3-point contest by topping Indiana teammates Buddy Hield and Tyrese Haliburton in the final round.

The Jazz — a roster composed of Utah players Jordan Clarkson, Walker Kessler and Collin Sexton — won the Skills Challenge, prevailing in two of the three competitio­ns.“

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