I say this because the players don't really seem to be trying on defense and this is reflected in the final score of a whopping 211-186. I suppose a regular game could get to this many points if there was twice as many quarters as there are in which case they would be called eighths.
I got bored watching it because it started to seem as though the defense was simply allowing people to score provided that the favor was returned on the other end of the court.
I get it ok? These guys are the best in the world and it is expected that they would score some points but they are also the best defensive players in the world and that was not what we, the fans, got to see in this game. It all kind of started to feel like a scam and that they were allowing it to be a "record setting" game as far as the score was concerned.
If you go to the wiki you'll see that the first all star game ended 111-94, which is a perfectly normal score for a normal game, let alone an All-Star game. Then as we approach the "showboating years" which I consider to be around 2010, it appears as though this is just more of a 3-point shooting contest and who can get the most absurd dunks in. Well of course 5 of the best players in the world can score 200 points when their opponents aren't even trying to stop them from doing so.
This is a disservice to the fans because I think that most people would prefer to see an actual competition rather than an exhibition. We have the Harlem Globetrotter shows for fake games where the whole thing is scripted but this game was more like WWE than NBA.
5 players scored more than 30 points and one player, Karl-Anthony Towns, got 50 yet somehow he ended up not being named the MVP. That award went to Damian Lillard and I can only guess that was because he had the most points on his team at 39 and his team won.
Just look at this absurd pic of shots taken and shots missed by both teams. What a friggin mess.
By halftime we had a score that would be the final score in most regular season games. That's when I stopped watching because despite all the crazy scoring that was going on it didn't seem like a real competition. As a fan of basketball, I would very much prefer to have an actual game going on there.
I don't think I will bother to watch future NBA All-Star games because this was just stupid. I get that these millionaires and their billionaire team owners don't want them to get injured but could you at least try to make it look like there is a real game going on here?
I think that fans are getting kind of fed up with the antics of the NBA. I know I am. I would be extremely upset if I had paid hundreds of dollars to go and see this game in person only to have a fake game happen instead.