Stephen Curry takes OGs to title, wins All-Star Game MVP

Golden State Warriors talisman Stephen Curry grabbed the Kobe Bryant Trophy as the All-Star MVP after leading the OGs to a 41-25 victory on Sunday. This was the NBA’s refreshed All-Star Game format and Curry brought his best to the court.

The linchpin scored 12 points in the first-to-40 finale against the Global Stars. Curry oozed his shooting range as he scored a three-pointer from the half-court. 

Jayson Tatum finished off the game with a dunk to hit the target score of 40 and scored a total of 15 points.

“It was one of those little flurries, just having fun,” Curry said of his 3-point barrage. “The half-court shot, I was going to take one at some point. [Nikola] Jokic was picking me up at half court, which was hilarious.”

Speaking of the new format, Curry said, “I think it was a good step in the right direction to reinvigorate the game in some way,”. 

Curry received 12 of the 14 votes for MVP, with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Tatum receiving one each. It was the second All-Star MVP of Curry’s career. 

“Anytime you’re going to look at the MVP, you want to look at what jumped out,” Lillard said. “In this type of format, nobody is going to have 50 points, or 30 points is even going to be hard to do unless you shoot it every time and make every shot. But you look at what jumps out. When was the crowd the loudest? What jumped off the floor? And that’s probably who your MVP is going to be. So, watching the game, it was like, ‘I’m pretty sure Steph is going to win it.’ … I don’t know how many points he had, it couldn’t have been that much, but I think it was the eye test.”

Kyrie Irving also concurred with Damian Lillard regarding the MVP choice.

“It’s easy to feed the hot guy, man and once he hit his first 3, basically every time we were looking for him,” Irving said. “When he’s in his hometown and playing in front of his home crowd, we all know what that means as an NBA player, as his peer. So, we’re not going to get in the way of that, man.”