Thoughts from All-Star Sunday

by Rohan on Feb 21, 2011 2:01 AM CST in Recaps

With All-Star weekend concluded, it's back to work for the Hornets. New Orleans welcomes freshly minted All Star Blake Griffin and his Clippers to the Hive on Wednesday. Before we move forward though, some assorted thoughts from last night's game after the jump.

- The thing I was most looking forward to this weekend was seeing the All-Star intros in person. Maybe it didn't seem like it over the television, but I felt like the intros were a little more subdued than normal. Interestingly, the East starters (with the exception of Rose) did their little dance things while being introduced while the West starters did nothing of the sort.

- A recurring theme across the weekend was player footwear- specifically shoes and socks. Chris Paul didn't don any wildly fluorescent kicks (as Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose, Kevin Love, Blake Griffin, and Serge Ibaka all did at various points over the weekend) but he did wear the tetris socks on Saturday.

- Tim Duncan was, for lack of a better word, horrible. He lost two Chris Paul feeds (the first quite slick) and didn't do much while on the floor. To be fair to Duncan, the All Star Game isn't exactly the ideal location for his skill set to shine... but still.

- Gregg Popovich's decision to sit Blake Griffin for large sections of the game definitely did not sit well with the Staples Center crowd. Following a "we want Blake" chant in the fourth quarter, Popovich finally acquiesced and put in the rookie. Griffin was pretty spectacular in limited time. Over 14 minutes he put up 8 points, 5 assists (not including one Duncan blew for him), and 5 rebounds. Popovich

- Kevin Durant missed a lot of shots during Saturday's Three Point Contest and did so again on Sunday.

- In much the same way Griffin won the Dunk Contest on Saturday (and by extension, Bieber won the Celebrity MVP on Friday), Kobe Bryant was always going to win this MVP. He staunchly refused to pass the ball, destroying multiple excellent alley-oop opportunities for the West. Sure 14-26 isn't a bad line... but the thing is, basically every player that started for either team could have gone out and put up 30+ points on 25+ shots if they wanted. Instead, they played within the constraints of their offenses (resulting in many awesome passes and dunks) and Kobe didn't. In any case, it's dumb to be too worked up about an... All Star Game MVP I think.

- Chris Paul put on a dribbling showcase. He went to various moves we've never seen him do and even pulled off a perfect Shamgod.

- Deron Williams missed three open layups, and Rajon Rondo missed a wide, wide, wide open fast break layup. So thankfully, Chris Paul's blown layup on Saturday exited the weekend with plenty of company.

- The halftime show was awesome. More than any other major sports league I think, the NBA really does know how to put on a show.

- Before the game, I went down to event level at Staples in an elevator, standing next to Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Pretty much the highlight of my 2011.

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Kobe being Kobe

Kobe wasn’t just ruining things on the court. Craig Sager was trying to interview Carmelo on the bench during the game last night about the details concerning NJ/NY, and Kobe (sitting right next to him) kept responding to every question directed at Melo with “he’s not allowed to answer that question.” Very obnoxious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qokkK2KsBcE

by GeauxHornets on Feb 21, 2011 8:14 AM CST reply actions

Yeah, but that was the second or third time Sager approached Melo

With that. I, as a fan, was getting annoyed. Melo was too, obviously. So Kobe had fun with it. I was fine with that.

HornetsHype.com

by m-W on Feb 21, 2011 4:34 PM CST up reply actions

Likewise

I’m sure Melo told everyone around him he’s tired of all the crap. Kobe being one of his closest friends simply stepped in attempting to deflect the bombardment from at least one journalist. I’d have done the same thing.

by RedHopeful on Feb 21, 2011 9:33 PM CST up reply actions

Good job Rohan

of giving us a personal perspective of the weekend festitivites. Loved your intuition on snapping a pic of the car plus introspective on asking Stern a question. Sounds like you had a really good time.

Anyway else think the All-Star game itself was more competitive than it’s ever been in recent memory? These guys showed a desire to win pretty much the entire game starting with Kobe’s great start, a few hard fouls (Durant comes to mind) to Lebron’s let-get-going rant leading to the East’s impressive almost come from behind win.

by RedHopeful on Feb 21, 2011 10:56 AM CST reply actions

Shamgod

I must have missed this move.

Anyways, JJack arrested for DUI. Great.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=6144508

Reppin' the Lafayette Hornets fans.

by RyanCaz on Feb 21, 2011 11:50 AM CST reply actions

The Game Itself

I don’t care for because i don’t like all star games. They’re basically just shoot arounds for 3 hours. As far as the halftime show, I didn’t watch it but I do like Kanye so maybe i’ll catch it on youtube. I’m just glad Chris Paul didn’t roll an ankle ala Wade or anything like that during the game. It’s done and that’s that.

"You play to win the game."

by MrWayneKeller on Feb 21, 2011 12:46 PM CST reply actions