Rising Stars…
2013-02-16Four Cavaliers in the rising stars game tonight, a game which features even less defense than an actual all star game. TT, Kyrie, and Waiters all acquited themselves well. Team Chuck with only TT representing the Cavs, beat Team Shack (whatever that means) 163-135. Kyrie led team Shaq with 32 points and 6 dimes, mostly off of dribbling to the basket at will, and countering that with feathery step back jumpers.
Tristan Thompson had a double double of 20 and 10, and was endemic of team Chuck’s plethora of quality big men. The 54 to 21 rebounding advantage might have had something to do with the final score.
Dion Waiters had a nice game with 23 points on 11 of 12 shooting, including a lob dunk off the glass where his head was at the rim. Towards the end a dunk contest broke out, and Dion had a wicked between the legs slam, followed by a pretty lame lob to himself.
Tyler Zeller pretty much deferred during his 16 minutes, and just collected 4 points and 4 boards.
All star games are by their nature an absurdist abstraction of basketball. Tonight’s was no exception, except no one told Kenneth Faried that he wasn’t supposed to be trying that hard. He was all over the court with rebounds and dunks, even hustling at the end of the game when team Chuck was up over 20. Many of those points were fed by sweet no look one handed passes by Ricky Rubio. His actual trying earned him MVP honors.
Towards the end a crossover contest developed between Brandon Knight and Kyrie Irving, and as can be evidenced from the video above. Kyrie won that contest with an absolute ankle breaker that made Knight end up on his face, and brought some excitement to a game that had gotten pretty ho-hum.
For three of four Cavs to play great in the game was awesome, and Kyrie and Dion probably had the top two plays of the game. Exciting stuff. Kyrie was -22 for the game though. What kind of schmuck looks at +/- in an all star game? This kind of Schmuck.
Faried’s team won, But Kyrie was the most impressive, would have been fun if he won the MVP two years in a row.
Or Tristan’s instagram with Lebron #thetakeover. Krolik brought up how much taller TT is than Lebron on twitter also.
Ditto here on going back to Rookie/sophomore game. I think they played harder and gave more credibilty to the game. . Just didn’t like the guards against big men. It was a dunking extravanganza. Too much. and too boring.
-I almost felt sorry for Knight. He just slipped trying to get a hand up, but man was that a nasty sequence. Guys are going to want to play with this Kyrie dude.
-The Cavs were the only other team in play for Shved. We could have had FIVE kids in this game…wow, has Grant been a beast or what.
-Dions last dunk got boo’d, which was kinda wierd.
-Did anyone see Speights’ Instagram with he and Kyrie titled “The future”? I think he likes it here, lol.
I prefer the Rookie/Sophomore format too, because the potential for an upset is more exciting. Good to see the Cavs do well though, even though it’s a nonsense event.
I’m not wild about the Team Shaq/Team Chuck concept from the past two years. Just seems like a gimmick for TNT to create TV content and not the pretigious award (I won it) it should be to be named as one of the best 8 from your draft class. I liked Rookies/Sophomores version more. These really aren’t games anymore and it’s made the product much less entertaining. It’s not quite a Pro Bowl kind of mockery of the sport, but it’s getting there.
I can’t stop watching the moves Kyrie put on Knight and those dunks by Dion were amazing. Tristans double take when Brandon Knight fell was priceless.
I don’t watch too many Timberwolves games but did anyone know that Sved could throw down like that? Also you were probably trying to keep it light, but Zellers first shot of the game, bricked a layup, you could tell he was just like sonofabitch and kind of quit after that.
Having 4 Cavs in Rising Stars was the buzz of the day in Rising Stars. But I have to say the game was disappointly boring. Team Shaq had too many divas jacking up shots, no rebounding and not even any attempt to defend (I know it’s All Stars) and Team Chuck had the Kenneth Faried 1 man dunk show. No one knew anyone else played for Team Chuck because the ball was lobbed overwhelmingly to the same player. I found it puzzling that TT didn’t start considering his awesome stats. Our cavs played good.
I’ve seen video of Dion dunking between the legs in high school and in college. Nice to know it’s still in his bag of tricks.