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Sunday, February 17, 2013

8:00 PM ET - Toyota Center, Houston, TX

TEAM SITES

EST |
WST

138

143

FINAL

EST
WST

26	39	39	34	138

31	38	39	35	143

East vs. West

Paul's MVP Performance

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Preview | Recap

East All-Stars-West All-Stars Preview

Posted Feb 16 2013 7:49PM

HOUSTON (AP) - The last All-Star game in Houston was a glimpse of what Miami Heat games would become.

LeBron James scored 29 points and was the MVP. Dwyane Wade added 20 and made the go-ahead basket to cap a huge comeback, and the Eastern Conference beat the West 122-120 in 2006.

"I had a pretty good experience the first time around, looking for the same thing this time," Wade said Friday.

The way things are going for the Heat, why not?

And think about this: James was already the best player that night, and he was nowhere near the player he is today.

"I'm a better player. At that point in time, I wasn't a complete basketball player. I couldn't shoot as well as I can now, I never posted up back then," James said. "More games, more playoff games, more knowledge. You continue to learn each and every day, it makes you a better player. That's what you want, to become a better player. That's what I want. I want to be the greatest of all-time. I try to do whatever it takes to get me in that position.

"Seven years, I've tried to improve each and every year."

Back where they first teamed up as All-Stars, Wade, James and Chris Bosh will start together for the East on Sunday night, another highlight for the NBA champions.

Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard and the Los Angeles Lakers aren't having nearly as much fun in a season so disappointing that Bryant was asked Friday if the All-Star weekend was a "retreat" for him.

"I don't know if it's a retreat, it's just more of an opportunity to get some rest, regroup, put the first half of the season behind us and move on," he said.

As Wade knows, the All-Star break can be just that - a break - from a forgettable season.

He arrived for the 2008 All-Star game with a 9-43 record after the Heat lost on Valentine's Day to the Chicago Bulls, on their way to a 15-win debacle just two years after they won the NBA title.

"I put all that aside, though, and I came and I enjoyed the weekend, and when I went back to Miami, it was like, `Oh my God, we're back in it,"' Wade said. "But All-Star weekend, you just enjoy being an All-Star. You enjoy being around the guys. You can kind of forget about that a little bit, unless you have the cameras and the microphones in front of you asking you questions about it, but besides that you try to enjoy it."

This time, the Heat celebrated Valentine's Day in Oklahoma City with a 110-100 victory over the Thunder, the team they beat in five games last summer for the title. They have won seven in a row, James is playing arguably the best basketball of his career, and they can relax and reminisce as they return to Houston.

"It's really indescribable," Bosh said, "just to not only win a championship with great guys, be in a great locker room, and just to have fun doing it, but just to be an All-Star every year, play with great teammates. I mean to play in front of a lot people in arenas every night. I don't take those things for granted."

James just ran off an NBA-record six straight games with at least 30 points and 60 percent shooting from the field, and seems to be distancing himself from anyone else that can take the MVP award he won last year for the third time in four years.

"He's doing well," Bosh said in a Texas-sized understatement. "That's the best way to put it."

Bosh was chosen as a starter Friday by Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, who will lead the East. He replaces Boston guard Rajon Rondo, who pulled out with a torn ACL.

Rounding out the starting five for the East with the Heat trio are New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony, who is second in the league in scoring at 28.6 points per game and Rondo's teammate Kevin Garnett, who recently became the 16th player in league history to surpass 25,000 career points.

Bryant and Howard are still here, away from a Los Angeles season that's been anything but a Hollywood story.

Considered a title contender after acquiring Howard and Steve Nash in the summer, the Lakers fell to 25-29 after they were blown out Wednesday by the rival Clippers, who opened a 13-game lead over them in the Pacific Division standings.

Smiling as he sat with his daughter, Natalia, Bryant laughed that he wished the All-Star break was a chance for the Lakers to "hit the reset button" on what he's said has been a most difficult season.

"Hopefully there's an easy button like in the commercial when we come back in the second half of the season and things are a little easier for us," he said.

Howard has battled injuries to his back and shoulder and has been nothing like the player who has been the NBA's dominant big man in recent years. He said at times he hasn't been having fun and has tried to ignore all the bad news around the team.

"You just try to stay away from the tube and do as much as I can to rehab my back and my shoulder and my mind, and really just get away from everything when I'm not playing basketball," he said.

If he's looking for a chance to enjoy himself this season, it may get no better than the next few days.

"It's a great weekend, it's an unbelievable weekend for the fans to be able to put all their favorite players together in one venue," James said. "We have a great time with it."

The West will have two pairs of teammates in its starting five as the other Los Angeles team - the Clippers - will be represented by point guard Chris Paul and forward Blake Griffin. Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant, the NBA's top scorer at 29.2 points per game and 2012 All-Star Game MVP, is the other starter.

---

West beats East 143-138 in NBA All-Star Game

By BRIAN MAHONEY
Posted Feb 18 2013 3:57AM

HOUSTON (AP) The NBA's career scoring leader in the All-Star game, Kobe Bryant has never been just about offense.

"I'm known for my defense," Bryant said. "I can defend. I'm pretty smart with my defense."

Pretty good, too. Ask LeBron James.

Bryant blocked James' jumper, turning it into a dunk by Kevin Durant that helped the Western Conference put away the East 143-138 on Sunday.

Bryant may not leap like Blake Griffin, but he can still get up when he needs to, especially when the defenseless part of the All-Star game is over and it's time to stop somebody - even the league's best player.

On Michael Jordan's 50th birthday, the players most often compared to him turned the final minutes into a 1-on-1 duel, and it went to Bryant - the guy Jordan said he'd pick between the two based on his five championship rings. That's one less than MJ and four more than King James.

"It was a great block," Durant said. "I haven't really seen any MVP get a jumper blocked like that. It was a really great play."

Chris Paul had 20 points, 15 assists and won MVP honors, and Durant scored 30 points. Griffin finished with 19, joining his Clippers teammate, Paul, in creating Lob City deep in the heart of Texas.

"You just want to play fast. I like to throw the lob. I like to see guys hit 3s," Paul said. "When we're out on the court with all that firepower, why wouldn't you want to make passes? You've got KD filling one of the lanes, you've got Blake, Kobe on the wing. There's nothing like it."

Bryant added a second late block of James, the MVP of the 2006 game here after leading a big East comeback. This time, he scored 19 points but shot only 7 of 18 after making 60 percent of his shots in six straight games before the break.

Carmelo Anthony led the East with 26 points and 12 rebounds.

"I think we played really good defense at the end of the game as a team," Durant said. "Kobe was really going with the ball. It's tough to stop LeBron, but he did his best. He was able to block a few of his shots. But CP did a really good job of keeping us in the game."

The first dunk of the game came 16 seconds in, Paul throwing a pass to Griffin as part of the West's 7-0 start. The West led after each of the first three quarters, though was never ahead by more than eight points through three periods.

They finally pushed it into double figures early in the fourth fueled by former Oklahoma City teammates Russell Westbrook and James Harden, but couldn't put it away until a late run behind the guys from the city of Los Angeles - who along with Lakers center Dwight Howard gave Los Angeles all but one of the West's starting spots.

Paul hit two 3-pointers, Bryant made a layup, and his block of James led to Durant's dunk that made it 136-126. Griffin had one last forceful dunk to help close it out, throwing a pass to himself off the backboard and climbing high in his neon green sneakers to slam it home and make it 142-134.

Harden had 15 points in his home arena, where the sights of the game were on the floor and the sounds were at the rim - which shook repeatedly after thunderous dunks for most of the game before, as usual, players tried to make some stops down the stretch.

Players' sneakers were a variety of pastels and fluorescent colors that looked like they came right from Easter Sunday church, many clashing so badly with their multi-colored socks that they may as well have been created by spilling out random paint buckets.

James and Dwyane Wade wore purple, and Griffin's neon look was also sported by the usually not-so-loud Tim Duncan and Brook Lopez.

But the NBA's high-flyers sure could leap in them.

Durant slammed one down so hard at one point that he stumbled backward after landing, appearing woozy. He came in as the career leader in points per game with 28.3 and may have won a second straight MVP award if not for Paul's big finish.

But the Kobe-LeBron matchup down the stretch showed that even in an All-Star game, when it's time to determine a winner, the 34-year-old Bryant is all business.

"It was all in good spirit, man. It was just two guys that love to compete, love to go at it. So I had a lot of fun," said James, who at 28 has plenty of time to catch up to Jordan and Bryant in when it comes to NBA championships.

Bryant finished with only nine points, but had eight assists. Griffin shot 9 of 11 from the field and didn't miss until trying to violently throw one down from a few feet away from the basket.

Indiana's Paul George scored 17 and Kyrie Irving had 15 for the East.

Not everybody had it so easy. Chris Bosh shot two airballs in the first quarter and was booed, tossed up another in the second, and had Tony Parker dribble the ball through his legs on defense. He was even pulled down the stretch by his own coach, Erik Spoelstra, right after Bryant blew right by him for a layup.

Bosh finished 3 of 9. Wade had 21 points on 10-of-13 shooting, the best performance of the three Heat players in the starting lineup. He and James helped the East pull out a two-point win in the 2006 game here, but the West didn't play Bryant-level defense back then.

"Second time in Houston, it was great," Wade said. "We didn't get the win, but we are all winners, because all 24 of us are All-Stars. So it was great."

There were plenty of laughs, players performing comedic skits and poking fun at each other on the Toyota Center's massive overhead scoreboard. Even the celebrities that surrounded the court - Westbrook almost crashed into Beyonce and Jay-Z while trying for a first-half steal - seemed entertained.

Two of Houston's biggest basketball stars, Hakeem Olajuwon and Yao Ming, who was honored after the first quarter, and Olympic gold medalists Usain Bolt and Gabby Douglas were among the athletes who weren't in the game.

Players wore warmup jackets with patches commemorating their individual and team career accolades during a lengthy pregame that included a performance by Ne-Yo. They actually warmed up twice, needing to get loose again after watching and being introduced during the elaborate show.

The game capped a weekend of change in Texas, where David Stern presided over his final All-Star game as commissioner and players' association executive director Billy Hunter was voted out of office - a result he seems likely to contest.

Boston's Kevin Garnett said before coming to Houston he thought his 15th All-Star selection would be his last, and turned it over to the young guys early. He played only 6 minutes of the first half before calling it a night.

---

Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Briancmahoney

EST WST

49.5% 55.4% 35.9% 37.5% 76.2% 70.0% FG % 3FG% FT %

	EST	WST
Total Rebounds	56	45
Offensive Rebounds	18	9
Turnovers	20	15
Fast Break Pts:	21	38
Biggest Lead:	2	11
Points in the Paint:	66	88

	EST	WST
p	Anthony 26	Durant 30
rb	Anthony 12	Howard 7
a	Wade 7	Paul 15
s	3 players 2	Paul 4
b	Wade 2	2 players 2

Download Game Book

East
field goalsrebounds
	pos	min	fgm-a	3pm-a	ftm-a	+/-	off	def	tot	ast	pf	st	to	bs	ba	pts
L. James	F	30:02	7-18	3-7	2-4	-13	0	3	3	5	0	1	4	0	2	19
C. Bosh	C-F	23:22	3-9	0-3	0-0	-14	0	2	2	1	3	1	3	0	0	6
K. Garnett	C-F	06:26	0-2	0-0	0-0	-5	1	2	3	1	0	0	1	0	0	0
C. Anthony	F	30:30	8-14	3-7	7-9	-9	5	7	12	3	0	0	1	0	0	26
D. Wade	G	28:49	10-13	1-2	0-0	-9	1	2	3	7	2	2	4	2	0	21
T. Chandler		16:51	2-5	0-0	3-3	0	3	5	8	0	1	0	0	0	0	7
K. Irving		24:46	6-11	3-6	0-0	+4	2	1	3	4	1	0	2	0	1	15
L. Deng		17:05	4-10	1-5	1-1	+4	0	2	2	1	0	0	2	0	0	10
P. George		20:03	7-13	3-6	0-0	+9	1	2	3	4	0	2	0	0	0	17
J. Noah		16:12	4-7	0-0	0-0	+2	3	7	10	3	1	0	1	1	2	8
J. Holiday		15:19	3-6	0-2	0-0	0	0	2	2	1	1	2	1	0	0	6
B. Lopez		10:35	0-1	0-1	3-4	+6	2	3	5	3	1	0	1	0	0	3
Totals		240	54-109	14-39	16-21		18	38	56	33	10	8	20	3	5	138
			49.5%	35.9%	76.2%		team rebs: 5			total to: 20

West
field goalsrebounds
	pos	min	fgm-a	3pm-a	ftm-a	+/-	off	def	tot	ast	pf	st	to	bs	ba	pts
K. Durant	F	31:22	13-24	3-8	1-1	-1	0	6	6	1	3	2	0	0	0	30
B. Griffin	F	27:24	9-11	0-0	1-2	+4	2	1	3	3	3	2	0	1	1	19
D. Howard	C	14:11	4-6	1-1	0-0	+5	0	7	7	0	1	0	1	0	0	9
K. Bryant	G	27:36	4-9	0-3	1-2	+8	2	2	4	8	2	2	1	2	0	9
C. Paul	G	27:17	7-10	4-5	2-3	+10	0	0	0	15	0	4	3	0	0	20
T. Duncan		08:03	1-4	0-1	0-0	-4	1	2	3	0	1	0	1	0	0	2
T. Parker		21:58	5-10	1-3	2-2	+7	0	1	1	5	0	2	3	0	0	13
J. Harden		25:50	6-13	3-8	0-0	0	1	5	6	3	2	0	2	0	0	15
Z. Randolph		13:21	3-6	0-0	0-0	0	1	4	5	0	0	0	0	0	1	6
R. Westbrook		18:06	7-13	0-3	0-0	-2	2	2	4	3	1	1	2	0	1	14
L. Aldridge		11:27	0-2	0-0	0-0	-1	0	4	4	1	0	0	1	2	0	0
D. Lee		13:25	3-4	0-0	0-0	-1	0	2	2	0	1	2	1	0	0	6
Totals		240	62-112	12-32	7-10		9	36	45	39	14	15	15	5	3	143
			55.4%	37.5%	70.0%		team rebs: 7			total to: 15

inactive

East: --
West: --

technical fouls

East: --
West: --

scoring

Lead Changes: 22
Times Tied: 7

arena stats

Arena: Toyota Center, Houston, TX
Officials: #10 Ron Garretson, #40 Leon Wood, #71 Rodney Mott
Attendance: 16101
Duration: 2:33