East fails to show in lopsided All-Star Game
LAS VEGAS -- Ever watch the movie The Basketball Diaries?
Leonardo DiCaprio's character Jim Carroll and a few of his teammates take a bunch of downers before a big game and then come out and get housed, tripping over their own feet and getting hit in the face with passes. Great scene.
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| Shaq admits the game was a 'little lopsided' during an interview after the game. (Getty Images) |
Put away your conspiracy theories -- the hangover only included a vast majority of the crowd, not the players -- but the game suffered nonetheless, as fatigue and a general lack of cohesion took the East out of the game very quickly.
"They didn't practice very well," East head coach Eddie Jordan said prior to the start, "but I think they're saving all that for the game."
Not quite.
All I could think as I watched them stumble around out there is what people in other countries who watch this as an event were thinking: This is the best the NBA's Eastern Conference has to offer?
Too bad, too, because the rest of the weekend was so good that you hoped the game would provide a final lasting memory. Instead, you just had to be impressed with the pretty packaging.
The league went all out on that. Beautiful stage. Wayne Newton. Toni Braxton. Christina Aguilera. You couldn't have fit more hoopla in with a shoe horn.
Only the East was missing.
Shaquille O'Neal muffed two first-quarter dunks, the East was embarrassingly careless with the ball, even by exhibition standards, and there was just no life in anybody on its side.
Considering how strong the entertainment in between timeouts was, the game itself was actually the worst part of the whole spectacle. The sellout crowd was falling asleep in the fourth quarter until O'Neal goofed around and played some point guard on a play to stir a reaction.
Heck, why not? The end result wasn't much different than what likely would've happened had they run the offense conventionally.
