Rick Bowmer/Associated Press
Let’s roll through a brief recap of the new All-Star-Game format: The score resets at the end of the first and second quarters, so the first three frames are basically their own separate contests. In the fourth, each team starts with its combined score from those first three quarters. Twenty-four points will then get added to the leading squad’s total, and whichever side reaches that score first will emerge victorious.
Theoretically, setting a target score in the fourth quarter should ascribe more meaning to the game. Winning individual quartersand money for charityis great and all, but the total still matters. For example, Team Giannis could win the first and third quarters and still trail by eight points entering the fourth, in which case they’d need to put up 32 more points to win.
Making up any sort of gap figures to be tough. Twenty-four points is nothing in the All-Star Game. We may end up with a five-minute fourth quarter. It behooves both teams to try from the jump so they don’t fall behind by an unmanageable deficit.
This presumes that the players care about winning at all. It’s unclear whether they do. Team LeBron probably isn’t going to lose sleep if it enters the fourth down by 12 and loses the game 90 seconds later.
But if there was ever a year this format could incite change, it’s this one. The NBA chose the 24-point tack-on to honor Kobe Bryant. And as Matt Barnes told ESPN’s Zach Lowe on The Lowe Post podcast, this is the same Kobe who once played “as hard as he f–king could” in a friendly pickup game…over the offseason…at a basketball camp…for kids.
Whether this new format will impart material change over the long haul is worth debating. This year shouldn’t be an issue. At least some players will feel an obligation to exert more effort in honor of Kobe.
Dan Favale
