WEST TRASH EAST IN ALLSTAR GAME, KOBE PICKS UP MVP!

 

(Image taken from NBA.com)

It's that time of year again! Last year the All Star Game was held in Houston, and the East won 122-120. For a win by the West you have to go back to '04 in LA when Shaq was playing for the local Lakers, and picked up the MVP as the West won 136-132. For some reason, possibly to do with the city's attempts to get their own NBA team, the '07 game was held in Las Vegas. Both sides came into the game having to patch up due to injury. Jason Kidd was out of action for the East while Steve Nash, Yao Ming, Allen Iversen and Carlos Boozer were unavailable for the West.

So, the East fielded a starting lineup made up of Gibert Arenas and Dwayne Wade at guard. LeBron James paired up with Chris Bosch at forward with Shaq at the centre with Vince Carter included on the bench, coached by Wizards coach Eddie Jordan. The West replied with Tracy McGrady and Kobe Bryant as guards, Kevin Garnett and Dirk Nowitski as forwards, with Tim Duncan as a makeshift centre(which he's done for the Spurs before), Tony Parker their most high profile bench man and coached by the Nuggets' Mike D'Antoni.

Well Arenas opened for the East with a shot that was never going to go in and when the ball went the other end, Garnett opened the scoring for the West who opened up to 4-0 before the East levelled. The West then went on a surge but James in particular was showing his class for the East and a Josh Howard dunk appeared to turn the game round 15-14. The West came back though, lead by Damon Stoudamire and Tony Parker and led 39-31 at the end of the first.

Tracy McGrady was the man that led the West in the second quarter and added to that, well Dirk Nowitski will sink classy three pointers in any game. The East were left floundering as a result with Shaq in particularly never really getting his act together on the night. His former Lakers teammate and rival Kobe was heating up though, the Lakers guard on a hot streak at the end of the half with the West an amaxing 79-59 up at half time.

The West picked up where they left off in the third with Shawn Marion joining Bryant and McGrady in finishing the game off. Le Bron was the only player on this East putting up half a fight at this point and the West hit the 100 part with over 5 minutes left in the quarter. Last on the Pistons players in the East lineup started to come through but you know you're in trouble if you're having to rely on "Detroit basketball". Even so, the West's play as a team had been pretty much perfection at this point and they led 119-88 at the end of the 3rd.

At which point, forget the 4th quarter of the Allstar game coming actually competitive between the two teams, the question was which one of the West players would get the MVP? Credit to the East, they did manage to cut into the West lead in the final quarter with Shaq and Wade teaming up to take care of business and provide decent back up to James but it was too little too late and the job had been done for the West, final score 153-132.

Given the way that Bryant pretty ran the West's show in the 4th quarter and the chants of "Kobe, Kobe, Kobe" from the crowd, it was no surprise that the Lakers man picked up his second Allstar Game MVP(the first was grabbed in Philadelphia '02, where he got booed despite Philly being the city where he grew up). 31 points, six assists, six steals. Overall, it has to be the most one-sided Allstar Game I've seen and the history books say that the winning margin was the biggest since the 1960s.

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