The NBA’s All-Star Weekend of 2015 was an exciting compilation of competition and entertainment. The weekend kicked off on Friday, February 13th with the Celebrity All-Star game. The West triumphed over the East, but the East’s Kevin Hart took the games MVP for the fourth year in a row! Immediately following the Celebrity Game, the Rising Stars Challenge commenced. The “World” team ending up winning over Team USA with a score of 121-112. The Minnesota Timberwolves rookie, Andrew Wiggins, took MVP honors with 22 points.
On Saturday Night, The State Farm All-Star Saturday night started. The event consisted of four competitions: The Degree Shooting Stars, The Taco Bell Skills Challenge, The Foot-Locker 3-point contest, and finally, The Sprite Slam Dunk Competition. The first event, The Degree Shooting Stars, was won by Team Bosh. Team Bosh was made up of NBA All-Star Chris Bosh, NBA Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins, and WNBA All-Star Swin Cash. This team has now won the shooting stars three years in a row.
The second event of the night was the taco bell skills challenge. Patrick Beverley of the Houston rockets won the challenge, but had to pull off an upset to do so. Jeff Teague of the Atlanta Hawks faced Beverley in the final round, and destroyed him in every aspect of the challenge, except he could not make the last jump shot. Beverley eventually caught up to Teague, and made the jumper on his first try to steal the victory.
After the Skills Challenge, The Foot Locker Three-Point contest occurred composing of some of the leagues best shooters. Some of these shooters include Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kyrie Irving, Kyle Korver (NBA’s Leading 3-Point Shooter), Marco Belinelli (Last Year’s Champion), and James Harden (NBA’s Leading Scorer). This contest may have had the toughest competition out of any Three-Point contest ever! Stephen Curry won the competition by a landslide with an astounding score of 27/34!
The final event of All-Star Saturday Night is usually the main event of All-Star weekend, and this one definitely lived up to its name. The Sprite Slam Dunk contest is made up of two rounds, each having two dunks in the round. Four people were in the contest, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Mason Plumlee, Victor Oladipo, and Zach LaVine. Victor Oladipo from the Orlando Magic and Zach LaVine from the Minnesota Timberwolves both posted scores of 50 on their first dunks, and LaVine scored a 50 on his second as well. The two made it on to the second round of the event, but LaVine blew away Oladipo with dunks that seemed impossible, yet looked effortless to him. The rookie from the Timberwolves came away with the trophy, and hopes of winning future dunk contests.
On Sunday night, the All-Star game was played as the last one of the weekend. The game ended with a high score of 163-158 with the west pulling out front. Russell Westbrook of the west put up 41 points, just one shy of tying Wilt Chamberlain’s record of 42 set back in the early 1960’s. This performance earned him the game’s MVP, and finishing off a great weekend.
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