Between them, Kyrie Irving and James Harden now have 15 All-Star Game appearances, but if it’s a familiar experience for them, they still made a little bit of history in Atlanta on Sunday night as the fourth set of Nets teammates to play in an All-Star Game together.
Harden and Irving represented Team Durant in the 170-150 loss to Team LeBron, though they were without their captain and Nets teammate who missed the last few weeks before the All-Star break with a hamstring strain. Kevin Durant — the leading vote-getter among Eastern Conference players — gave the Nets three players selected for this game, a franchise first.
“We don’t want to take that for granted, three guys on one team being All-Stars,” said Irving. “Obviously with K not being here it felt a little bit incomplete, but we need him to get healthy for the second half of the season what really matters. It takes a lot of, lot of hard work. I don’t think a lot of people know what it takes to be a professional athlete and to be distinguished as one of the best of the world to casual fans, to casual people that support the NBA, people that support basketball, get to see only glimpses of us sometimes, of the amount of commitment it takes to be great at anything, but especially at this game. It’s an honor to be able to put in work and reap the rewards, especially when you reap the rewards with your teammates. I know this will still go down in history, but we just don’t want to take this for granted.”
Irving, making his fifth All-Star start, got off to a quick start with 10 of Team Durant’s first 16 points, making his first four shots over the game’s first four minutes. He finished with 24 points, 12 assists, six rebounds, and two steals while shooting 10-of-15.
“Just grateful to be able to share the floor with some highly talented individuals on and off the floor,” said Irving. “Get a chance to take a break from everything the first half of the season. All of us have just been playing hard for our teams, for our respective teams and just come out here and put on a show for the fans that are watching at home and the fans that were able to make it to the game tonight. It’s a true honor. We work every single day in order to separate ourselves amongst each other, so just great that we got a chance to be out here and play for the fans.”
Despite Irving’s early shot-making, and Harden quickly knocking down a pair of 3-pointers after he entered the game, Team Durant dropped the first quarter, 40-39. With the score resetting after each quarter under the new format adopted last season, Team Durant dropped each of the first three quarters, and went into the fourth quarter trailing 146-125. That left Team LeBron needing to get to 170 under the format that tacks on 24 points — for Kobe Bryant’s jersey number — from where the leading team stands entering the fourth quarter as the finishing score to win the game. Too much ground for Team Durant to make up.
Harden finished with 21 points and four assists while shooting 7-for-14.
“It’s some of the best talent in the world,” said Harden. “You get a chance to share a court with them and have fun. The shot-making is elite; ball-handling talent. Felt great. Kind of a little upset we didn’t come away with the win, but those guys got hot and they made some big-time shots.”
In addition to $3 million in contributions towards Historically Black Colleges and Universities, the event highlighted the schools throughout the evening, from the court designs to anthem performances and the refereeing crew for the game, all HBCU alumni.
“We’re in Atlanta, so it’s a predominantly Black area,” said Irving. “Lot of Black kings and queens walking around here, whether working in the arena or working behind the scenes, or us even playing, so it just felt like a great collection of everybody putting in their hand to make this happen. So I’m just grateful to be able to be on this platform to share it with the HBCU colleges. Lot of my brothers and sisters, lot of my relatives out here, and I don’t take that for granted. Still a lot more work to be done in the community to shed light on the HBCUs and a lot of the students, lot of our younger generation that will eventually be the leaders of our world. They start in places like HBCUs. We’ve just got to continue to stay the path. Stay committed to the work. That’s most importantly, and then the kids, they’ll follow up for us. Just keep on giving them support, so it’s pretty cool.”