THE NBA has for years been seeking a fix for its broken All-Star Game.
Through one iteration of the new USA vs. World format, it appears that it’s found one. There’s no telling how this will play out in the long run. But it’s hard to argue that Sunday’s All-Star tournament was anything but a success.
Two teams of U.S. players and one team of World players played three 12-minute games in a round-robin format to set up a winner-take-all final. The two U.S. teams prevailed to meet in the final, and Team Stars beat Team Stripes 47-21 to claim the inaugural USA vs. World All-Star tournament championship.
The blowout final was not indicative of the rest of Sunday’s action. Each game of round-robin play was a verified thriller.
The Team Stars win in the championship round avenged a 42-40 win by Team Stripes in Game 2 in which De’Aron Fox secured the victory with a buzzer-beating do-or-die 3.
Game 1 required overtime and ended on a walk-off 3 by Scottie Barnes for a 37-35 Team Stars win over Team World.
And the third featured Kawhi Leonard going nuclear on his home court with 31 points in 12 minutes to rally Team Stripes to a 48-45 win to eliminate Team World.
Anthony Edwards was named MVP. He tallied 13 points in Team Stars’ Game 1 win over Team World. He posted 11 points in the Game 2 loss to Team Stripes. And he tallied 8 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists in Team Stars’ decisive title game win.
In total, Edwards tallied 32 points, 9 rebounds and 3 assists while shooting 13 of 22 (59.1%) from the field and 6 of 15 (40%) from 3 in the equivalent of three quarters of basketball. But he wasn’t the only star to shine on Sunday.
Victor Wembanyama, meanwhile, set the competitive tone and was making his own MVP case had his Team World managed to win.
In a game that’s long languished without competitive basketball, Wembanyama came out firing on both sides of the court, scoring Team World’s first seven points in Game 1 while contesting every shot that was within his reach.
He finished with 33 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocks while shooting 10 of 13 from the field and 4 of 5 from 3. Team World didn’t make the final, so he did this in 20 minutes across two games.
In his MVP victory speech, Edwards cited Wembanyama for sparking the competitive atmosphere in Sunday’s games.
“We chose to compete today, and we came out on top,” Edwards said. “I ain’t gonna lie, Wemby set the tone. He came out playing hard and we had to follow that. We had to pick it up as the red team, and we did that.” (Yahoo Sports)