Jayson Tatum and Stephen Curry lead Team Shaq’s NBA All-Star clincher

SAN FRANCISCO – The critics regularly blasted the National Basketball Association (NBA) All-Star Game as an event in which very little defence was being played.

The NBA’s new format drew mixed reviews on Feb 16 when Team Shaq prevailed as the winners of the three-game event in San Francisco.

Stephen Curry, who was named MVP for scoring 20 points over two games and helping Team Shaq to a 41-25 victory over Team Chuck in the championship game, said he was happy with the format.

“I had a lot of fun,” he said. “The intensity was definitely different than last year. It’s something new, everybody is still trying to figure it out... There are ways to tinker with the product, but I think this was a step in the right direction.”

Draymond Green, Curry’s Golden State Warriors teammate, did not play in the All-Star Game but is very much against the format.

He did not like that there was a team of non-All Stars playing among the four squads, and he pointed out that nobody can make a run at single-game scoring records in such a format.

“You work all year to be an All-Star and you get to play up to 40 (points) and then you’re done,” Green said on TNT, the network televising and promoting the contest.

“This is so unfair to Victor Wembanyama, who just took this game really seriously, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who just took this game really seriously.”

Asked to rate it on a scale, Green said, “Ten being the best? A zero. It sucks. Awful.”

Jayson Tatum scored 15 points and Curry added 12 on four three-pointers in Team Shaq’s easy 16-point victory in the title game.

Tatum made six of seven shots from the floor and converted the decisive dunk for Team Shaq, coached by former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal.

Curry was named All-Star Game MVP for the second time. He also won in 2022, when he scored 50 points and set an All-Star Game record with 16 three-pointers in Cleveland.

Team Shaq’s LeBron James sat out the festivities with an ankle injury.

Wembanyama scored 11 points to pace Team Chuck, who were coached by former NBA star Charles Barkley.

Team Shaq were seven points away from the target score of 40 when Curry hit two treys to pull them within one.

Tatum soon threw down his dunk to end the first All-Star Game played under this format.

Milwaukee Bucks guard Damian Lillard, a native of Oakland, was also on the winning side. He felt like the 2025 event was an improvement over recent years’ All-Star Games.

“They’re just looking for a more competitive game and trying to find ways to create that and I thought tonight was a little bit more competitive than they have been the last few years,” he said.

“That’s the No. 1 thing, just to provide the entertainment and that competitiveness on the floor, and I thought it was a little bit more of that tonight.”

Team Shaq shot 57.1 per cent from the field, including a nine-of-17 mark from three-point range, while Team Chuck shot 35.5 per cent overall and was a lowly two of 16 from behind the arc.

The contest was the second of the night for both teams under the new format. Team Shaq qualified for the title match with a 42-35 win over Team Candace, coached by former women’s star Candace Parker.

Team Candace comprised first- and second-year NBA players who played their way through the Rising Stars competition on Feb 14.

Team Chuck reached the final with a 41-32 victory over Team Kenny, coached by former NBA player Kenny Smith.

Meanwhile, Dallas Mavericks assistant coach Darrell Armstrong was arrested on Feb 15 and faces a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

The Dallas Police Department confirmed the arrest on Feb 16. The Mavericks said in a statement that they had suspended an unidentified employee.

Armstrong, 56, is accused of hitting another individual with a gun and threatening to shoot that individual, whom television station WFAA in Dallas identified as a woman. Dallas police were responding to a call in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Armstrong has worked as an assistant coach for the Mavericks since 2009.

His NBA playing career (1994-2008) totalled 840 games for the Orlando Magic, the then New Orleans Hornets, Indiana Pacers, the then New Jersey Nets and Mavericks. REUTERS