All-Star blowout ends with a wave of boos
INDIANAPOLIS
The NBA had hoped for a more intense and competitive All-Star Game. Instead, it got a recordsetting scoring explosion in a forgettable blowout that unexpectedly ended with a wave of boos.
Milwaukee Bucks guard Damian Lillard and Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton led the Eastern Conference to a 211186 victory over the Western Conference on Sunday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. The East was the first team in All-Star Game history to score at least 200 points, demolishing the previous record of 196 set by the West in 2016. The two teams’ combined score of 397 points was also a record.
The East’s commanding performance qualified as a surprise, given that the West’s loaded roster featured three MVPs — LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Nikola Jokic — in its starting lineup and a fourth, Stephen Curry, coming off the bench. But the East’s younger legs and hot outside shooting were more than enough to overcome the on-paper talent disparity as Lillard and Haliburton combined to make 21 three-pointers.
Lillard, who won the three-point contest, and Haliburton, who led a Pacers trio to a victory in the skills challenge, carried over their momentum from All-Star Saturday. By midway through the third quarter, the only drama was which of the East’s starting guards would take home MVP honors.
Although Haliburton helped seal the win with a pair of late three-pointers and a breakaway dunk, Lillard won the Kobe Bryant MVP trophy with a team-high 39 points and a game-high 11 three-pointers. Haliburton finished with 32 points, seven rebounds and six assists, and his MVP snubbing prompted loud boos from the home crowd.
“I expect [the boos],” said Lillard, who was the All-Star Game MVP for the first time in his eighth appearance. “We’re in his hometown, his building. He had a great game, but it’s an honor. Anytime you have this type of experience enough, you want to be All-Star Game MVP. Being able to come out with this is a special accomplishment.”
Lillard received seven of the 12 MVP votes; Haliburton received five.
“It could have went either way,” said Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum, who won the AllStar
Game MVP award last year. “Dame put on a show. I was happy for him. It was cool I could take a backseat this year and get to enjoy the show a little bit.”
The NBA spent months making a concerted effort to put on a more compelling show after the 2023 All-Star Game in Salt Lake City was panned for its lack of intensity. That contest suffered from a relative lack of headlining star power; Curry and Durant were sidelined with injuries, while James and Giannis Antetokounmpo played limited minutes with dubious health concerns.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Saturday that the league met with the National Basketball Players Association to explore tweaks that would help increase buy-in from stars who are pulled in many different directions during All-Star Weekend. The league’s brain trust concluded that simpler was better, choosing to return to a traditional East-vs.-West format rather than having two captains draft the roster and reverting to a standard four-quarter format instead of the “Elam ending,” which used a complicated target score approach.
In addition, the league trimmed down the pregame festivities by introducing the players on the court rather than on an elaborate stage and featured Jennifer Hudson in a simpler halftime act.
“People uniformly were critical of last year’s AllStar Game and felt it was not a competitive game,” Silver said. “The feeling was that maybe … we’d gotten carried away a little bit with the entertainment aspect. … We have to return to basketball. It’s about the game. That’s ultimately how we’re going to be judged.”
Indiana, long hailed as a basketball haven, seemed receptive to the changes, especially early in the evening. Larry Bird, the Hall of Fame product of Indiana State, welcomed the crowd with an enthusiastic “Indy, start your engines!” And Pacers legend Reggie Miller took the microphone at center court before the game to reminisce on his 18-year career with Indiana.
“Many places consider themselves the home of basketball, but Indiana really is basketball country,” Miller said to loud applause.
But the thoughtful structural changes didn’t produce a better balance between offense and defense: The East and West scored at a breakneck pace from the jump. The East began pulling away before halftime and set records by making 42 three-pointers and attempting 97, a fitting perimeter onslaught during the modern NBA’s runaway scoring boom.
Haliburton hit five three-pointers in the first four minutes, including a deep attempt from the NBA logo near center court. Lillard added six first-half three-pointers of his own, drilling one over Durant from well beyond the arc.
“[Lillard’s performance] was incredible,” said Antetokounmpo, the East’s captain. “He stayed hot from Saturday night. You can tell he was going for [MVP]. All we had to do as a team was give him the ball. He did what he does best: make a lot of threes.”
The 33-year-old Lillard, who was traded by the Portland Trail Blazers last summer, didn’t slow down after halftime, swishing a three-point attempt from half court early in the third quarter and another in the game’s final minute.
“Once we came out in the third, we made a lot of shots,” Lillard said. “Everybody was asking what the [scoring] record was. We found out, and then we went after it.”