Celtics star Jayson Tatum came close, but he missed out on being named the NBA’s All-Star game MVP for the second time in three years. Instead, it went to the hometown hero Stephen Curry as he earned the MVP award in front of the Warriors crowd in San Francisco.
Tatum finished with a team-high 15 points, three rebounds and two assists in the finals of the All-Star tourney as Team Shaq beat Team Chuck 41-25 in a blowout. Celtics All-Star Jaylen Brown added four points and two rebounds off the bench for Team Shaq in the finals.
Tatum actually led his squad in points between the two games, but the MVP award went to Curry instead. Tatum scored 21 points on 9-for-11 shooting, including 3-for-5 on 3s. Curry ended the two games with 20 points on 7-for-17 shooting and 6-for-16 on 3s. But Curry ended up getting 12 of 14 votes for the All-Star MVP as he took home the honors in front of his hometown crowd in San Francisco. Tatum ended up with one vote.
Compared to the normal All-Star game, the NBA went with a new format this year featuring four teams in a tournament. The All-Stars were split up between three different teams, led by Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley. Team Shaq featured the “OGs” or veterans, Smith had the “Young Stars” and Barkley featured “Global Stars.” So that was a fun wrinkle compared to the old exhibition game. The fourth and final team Sunday was the winner of the Rising Stars challenge Friday, led by Candace Parker.
In the tournament, all three games featured the “Elam ending.” That means no running clock like normal games and teams play to a target score instead. Both the semifinals and finals were played to a target score of 40 points. So the game automatically ended once a team hit or surpassed the 40-point mark.
In the semifinals, Tatum played 10 minutes, putting up six points, two rebounds and two assists while shooting 3-for-4 from the field. Brown finished with six minutes played, scoring eight points on 4-for-5 shooting. Team Shaq secured the victory over Team Candace featuring the Rising Stars in a 42-35 victory. On the other side of the bracket, Team Chuck beat Team Kenny 41-32 in the semis.
