History Made at the 66th NBA All-Star Game

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Anthony Davis #23 of the New Orleans Pelicans celebrates with the 2017 NBA All-Star Game MVP trophy after the 2017 NBA All-Star Game at Smoothie King Center on February 19, 2017 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

Mac Ireland, Contributor

The NBA held its 66th annual NBA All-Star game this past weekend. Anthony Davis made history scoring the most points in an All-Star game with 52.

The NBA held its 66th annual All-Star game this past weekend in New Orleans. The All-Star weekend kicked off Friday night with the celebrity game and the Rising Stars Challenge. Saturday evening the NBA held all of its Saturday festivities including the skills competition, three-point contest, and the slam dunk contest. The weekend was rounded off with the All-Star game Sunday night. As always the there was little defense, but it was still intriguing to see all the different personalities of the best players on one stage.

The biggest headline of the night was Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant playing together for the first time since Durant’s departure this past summer. Westbrook entered the game early  and it didn’t take long to see him and Durant working together. Westbrook and Durant pulled off a give and go alley-oop that had everyone talking. When they returned to the bench the entire team surrounded them with cheers celebrating the reunion.

Anthony Davis put on a show in front of his hometown New Orleans. Davis scored 52 points passing Wilt Chamberlian’s record of 42 points in an All-Star game. Davis notched a double-double by also collecting 10 rebounds. His performance earned him NBA All-Star game MVP. It was fitting that the hometown teams best player won the MVP. His teammates made sure to get him the ball and allowed him to take as many shots as he wanted. He took the most shots by far Sunday night with 39 field goal attempts. The second most was Westbrook with 26 attempts.

For the West, Westbrook finished with 41 points falling just short of also breaking Chamberlain’s record. Kevin Durant finished the night with a triple-double of 21 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. Durant became just the fourth player in NBA history to record a triple-double in the All-Star game. For the East, first-time all-star Giannis Antetokounmpo came out hot and stayed hot all game. He kept attacking the basket performing highlight dunks every time he took off. He finished the night with 30 points. LeBron James was the second leading scorer for the East with 23 points.

At the end of the night, the West would prevail in a 192-182 win over the East. Just like last year, not much defense was played. The high scoring output of both teams led to 374 combined points breaking last year’s record of 369. Next year the All-Star game will be held in Los Angles. It should be interesting to see if either of these teams will score 200 points next season. For now, it is onto the second half of the 2016-17 season.