CHICAGO — No one involved in the 2020 NBA All-Star Game could predict how the new scoring format would affect the game. Chris Paul, head of the Players Association, lobbied the commissioner Adam Silver to adopt the Elam Ending this year — a rule change in which the teams play to a final number rather than against a dwindling game clock.
The league agreed and took the idea a step further, awarding charity money to the team that won each individual quarter before tallying up the cumulative scores in the final frame and playing to an extra 24 points (a tribute to Kobe Bryant) to determine the winner. The result was a thrilling fourth quarter that ultimately ended on an Anthony Davis free throw to give Team LeBron a 157-155 win over Team Giannis.
NBA All-Stars sounded off on the format change after the game. This is what the players and coaches in the game thought of the new scoring system.
KEMBA WALKER: Yeah, I thought it was cool. I had no idea coming into the game, I didn’t know what to expect. As we played, it was great. That’s what everybody wants to see. They want to see a competitive game. That’s what it was in the fourth. Hopefully, we can keep it going.
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: After the game, my brother came down, and he said, this has been the most fun All-Star he’s been a part of. And I asked him why, and he told me, “Because you guys were really competitive. You guys were playing to win.” Team Giannis, that’s what we were trying to do. We were trying to come out, set the tone, play hard. Especially in the fourth quarter, the defense got tighter. Guys were hitting one another. Every possession counts. We had a little bit of playoff intensity out there. So I loved it. I hope we can keep the same format for a lot of years, and I think people had fun, we had fun. So that’s what it’s all about.
JIMMY BUTLER: It was dope. Damn sure got to compete at the end. It’s still fun to go out there and be known as one of the best players in the world in this league. Hopefully it stays like that.
JOEL EMBIID: It was great. Fun weekend. Probably one of the best All-Star Games ever. Guys competed. It came down to basically the last shot. I don’t agree that you should be able to win on a free throw, but overall it was a lot of fun.
Reporter: Do you think they should stick with this format for future All-Star Games?
EMBIID: For sure. Besides the first quarter, I felt like everybody was playing hard. It was competitive.
KYLE LOWRY: We wanted to win. We’ll do anything it takes to win a basketball game. I think the format was great for everybody. The change helped the whole experience. I think it was one of those things where we innovated. In our league we always try to do different things, and it worked out perfectly.
ANTHONY DAVIS: I feel like playing in the end was a playoff game. It was a great competition. It’s 24 players who want to compete at a very high level and to do it in front of a crowd like this. New format, everybody in the game really loved it. Like I said, it was a fun competition. It was great.
Reporter: Now that the game is over, your opinion about the new format?
DAVIS: It was great. We love it. It brings competition back, especially during the fourth quarter — it’s about getting stops. You have to get stops to win the game. It was great. We all loved it.
Reporter: Is this something that you hope the league considers long term?
DAVIS: Absolutely. For the seven I’ve been in, this has been probably one of the better ones. You actually have to compete. You argue with the refs. It felt like a real playoff game and that’s what makes it fun.
Reporter: A lot of people seem to feel as if this format is good for the game, but some are saying the game maybe shouldn’t end on a free throw. I’m curious as to what you think about that.
KAWHI LEONARD: I mean, it’s a point, so we can’t take out free throws through the whole game. They pretty much made the last six or seven free throws towards the end. They kept giving them. So do we want to minus those points as well? But the new format was good. I felt like it was fun in that fourth quarter.
NICK NURSE: Well, I think it was really interesting. It was really fun. Each and every quarter was, from a coaching standpoint was really fun. I thought the quarters got really interesting really early in the quarters because the game was moving pretty quick. Not a ton of whistles in the first bit, right? So the thing kind of mattered a little bit. I think with the cumulative score, even though we were down in the first quarter, we thought we had to keep plugging to keep it close so it doesn’t get too far away. Then when we were on the other side of it, we said let’s keep increasing our lead and get as big of an advantage going into the fourth. Then, obviously, the end was amazing. I think everybody in the whole place was on their feet watching each possession, and they were really going at it. I mean, defensively it was hard to get anything — or offensively it was hard to get anything started. Even first passes were being denied. It felt like the end of a playoff game, which was really cool, I thought.
Reporter: Could you take us into the final quarter. We saw a very competitive game, which is something that we haven’t seen in the All-Star Game for a long time. What changed this year?
FRANK VOGEL: I think the format probably had something to do with it, but I do think that, while a lot of the All-Star games have not been competitive, usually when it’s close down the stretch, it becomes very competitive. I think with the format the way it was, first team to get to that 157 mark, I think it just became more competitive a little bit longer. But it’s not uncommon for All-Star games to get competitive down the stretch when they’re close.
Reporter: LeBron, did this format live up to what you were expecting? Other than maybe a Finals game, when’s the last time you played in a fourth quarter that had that much intensity, that much fight to it?
LeBRON JAMES: I didn’t know what to expect because it was a new format, new year. None of us knew what to expect. But throughout the whole fourth quarter and at the end of the game, everybody was like, “That was pretty damn fun.” That was fun. Having to play for a set number and seeing that — I’ve watched a lot of basketball in the summertime, and I forgot the name of the league where the guys, you know, their alma mater, they go back and play for their teams and things of that nature, they have a set number they have to get to that, that $2 million championship tournament. Maybe you don’t watch basketball in the summer.
Reporter: TBT.
JAMES: Yeah, that was extremely fun and a great way to end 2020 NBA All-Star Weekend.
Reporter: You’ve obviously played a lot of basketball in your career. What did you think of adding on a free throw instead of old playground rules with an actual bucket?
JAMES: It doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, you can win a Finals game at the free-throw line. There’s a lot of things that happen on the playground that you can’t do in our game too, where you can literally foul every single time and not get disqualified. I’ve been in games where you’ve won games at the free-throw line, and that’s all part of the game. If he would have missed both, no one would have been talking about it. It’s all part of the game, and it was a hell of a way to win a game just from an All-Star perspective.
Reporter: Do you think the All-Star Game is back because of the competitive game we saw?
CHRIS PAUL: I’m obviously biased. I don’t think it ever went anywhere. I know I’m always competitive whenever I play. But the good thing about our league is we’re always adding things and trying new things and trying to figure out from my fans what they like. This was an idea I brought to Adam. Thankfully, we tried it out, so I was asking the guys how they enjoyed it during the game and at the end of the game. So you all be sure to ask him.
RUSSELL WESTBROOK: It was good. We won.
JAMES HARDEN: It was different (than previous experiences) because being down, we had to get to a certain number. It made us play even harder to get to that number. There was no running the clock out. You had to actually score the basketball. No time — just shot clock and you gotta get a bucket. The charities, the fans, the game got exciting. I think the fans got more into it. It was cool. Everybody was so competitive, ready to win the game. We were coming up with different strategies every time to score, to get a stop. It was pretty cool to strategize on every possession.
Reporter: Do you think Kobe would have liked the competitiveness in the fourth quarter?
HARDEN: That was the competitive dog he was. He was a competitive beast. That right there made it.
DETROIT (AP) — The Detroit Red Wings signed forward Lucas Raymond to an eight-year, $64.6 million contract Monday, completing a deal with one of their best young players less than 72 hours before training camp begins.
Raymond will count $8.075 million against the salary cap through 2032. The 22-year-old was a restricted free agent without a contract for the upcoming NHL season and was coming off setting career highs with 31 goals, 41 assists and 72 points.
The Red Wings have another one of those in defenceman Moritz Seider, who won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in 2021-22.
Detroit is looking to end an eight-year playoff drought dating to the Original Six franchise’s last appearance in 2016.
Raymond, a Swede who was the fourth pick in 2020, has 174 points in 238 games since breaking into the league.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Kirk Cousins led a flawless last-minute drive for Atlanta and connected with Drake London for a 7-yard touchdown with 34 seconds left to give the Falcons a 22-21 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday night.
Saquon Barkley dropped a short pass that stopped the clock with 1:46 left and forced the Eagles to settle for a field goal instead of a game-sealing first down. That was plenty of time for Cousins — especially against an Eagles defense playing soft coverage with a nonexistent pass rush.
The 36-year-old veteran, playing his second game since tearing his Achilles tendon last Oct. 29 while playing for Minnesota, shook off an uneven effort and hit Darnell Mooney for 21 and 26 yards on consecutive plays during the decisive drive.
Cousins found London on a short pass to his right for the tying score, and Younghoe Koo put Atlanta (1-1) on top with a 48-yard extra point after London was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. The go-ahead drive took just 65 seconds.
Jalen Hurts had his final pass intercepted by Jessie Bates III to seal Atlanta’s win and set off a wild celebration on the sideline.
The Eagles (1-1) went ahead on Hurts’ 1-yard tush push score with 6:47 left. Barkley finished with 95 yards on 22 carries in his home debut for Philadelphia, but his drop provided the Falcons with some hope.
And then Cousins started playing like the QB Atlanta thought it was getting when it signed him to a four-year, $180 million contract.
Cousins finished 20 of 29 for 241 yards and two touchdowns. Atlanta’s first TD was a 41-yarder from Cousins to Mooney, who finished with three catches for 88 yards.
Hurts was 23 of 30 for 183 yards, including a touchdown pass to DeVonta Smith. With No. 1 receiver A.J. Brown out with a hamstring injury, Smith led the Eagles with seven catches for 76 yards and a score.
Jake Elliott kicked two field goals for the Eagles. His 28-yarder with 1:39 left made it 21-15.
Atlanta kept stalling in the red zone, getting three field goals from Koo, before Cousins fired over the middle to Mooney, who shook loose from C.J. Gardner-Johnson and left him on the turf before he somersaulted into the end zone with 1:21 left in the third quarter for a 15-10 lead. Cousins failed on the 2-point conversion pass.
Hurts had some juice in his step during a second-quarter TD drive, running with abandon for big plays much like he did in the 2022 season. He spiked the ball in a rare, raw show of emotion on a 23-yard run, earning a delay-of-game penalty. He shrugged off the 5-yard setback and scrambled for 9 yards and 15 yards to move the Eagles to Atlanta’s 19.
With comedian Shane Gillis and actor Bradley Cooper among the fans cheering on the Eagles, Hurts connected with Smith in the back of the end zone for a 7-yard TD that made it 7-3.
Under new defensive coordinator Vince Fangio, the Eagles have established an early knack for allowing long drives that end with three points instead of seven. Koo kicked field goals of 39, 22 and 34 yards, the last one enough for a 9-7 lead in the third quarter. In their opener, the Eagles held the Packers to just three field goals when they drove inside the 20.
Questionable call
Rather than take a chip-shot field goal from Elliott, the Eagles’ fourth-and-4 gamble at Atlanta’s 9-yard line in the first quarter failed when Hurts threw an incomplete pass.
Elliott kicked a 29-yarder with 4:31 left in the third quarter for a 10-9 lead.
Running wild
Bijan Robinson ran for 97 yards for the Falcons. The Eagles stuffed him late on fourth-and-1 at the Atlanta 39.
Barkley was quiet until the go-ahead drive, a week after he rushed for 109 yards and scored three touchdowns against Green Bay. Eagles fans booed when the opening drive of the game ended without Barkley touching the ball. They went wild when he had consecutive 9-yard runs to open the second drive. Barkley had 40 yards rushing in the first half.
Foles honored
Former Eagles QB Nick Foles, who led the franchise to its only Super Bowl title, served as an honorary captain and led the crowd in a rendition of “Fly, Eagles, Fly.”
Injuries
The Falcons played without LB Nate Landman (calf, quad).
Up next
Atlanta hosts Super Bowl champion Kansas City on Sunday.
TORONTO – Singles star Leylah Fernandez and doubles specialist Gabriela Dabrowski will anchor Canada’s five-player lineup when the team tries to defend its Billie Jean King Cup title in mid-November.
The 26th-ranked Fernandez, the 2021 U.S. Open finalist from Laval, Que., is the lone Canadian in the top 100 of the WTA Tour’s singles rankings.
Dabrowski, from Ottawa, is ranked fourth on the doubles list. The 2023 U.S. Open women’s doubles champion won mixed doubles bronze with Felix Auger-Aliassime at the recent Paris Olympics.
Marina Stakusic of Mississauga, Ont., returns after a breakout performance last year, capped by her singles win in Canada’s 2-0 victory over Italy in the final. Vancouver’s Rebecca Marino is also back and Bianca Andreescu, the 2019 U.S. Open champion from Mississauga, Ont., returns to the squad for the first time since 2022.
“Winning the Billie Jean King Cup in 2023 was a dream come true for us, and not only that, but I feel like we made a statement to the world about the strength of this nation when it comes to tennis,” Canada captain Heidi El Tabakh said Monday in a release. “Once again, we have a very strong team this year with Bianca joining Leylah, Gaby, Rebecca and Marina, making it an extremely powerful team that is more than capable of going all the way.
“At the end of the day, our goal is to make Canada proud, and we’ll do our best to bring the same level of effort and excitement that we had in last year’s finals.”
Fernandez, who beat Jasmine Paolini to clinch Canada’s first-ever title at the competition, is ranked No. 42 in doubles.
Canada, which received an automatic berth as defending champion, will play the winner of the first-round tie between Great Britain and Germany on Nov. 17 at Malaga’s Martin Carpena Arena.
Australia, Italy and wild-card entry Czechia also received first-round byes. The tournament, which continues through Nov. 20, also includes host Spain, Slovakia, the United States, Poland, Japan and Romania.
Stakusic is up 27 spots to No. 128 in the latest world singles rankings. Marino is at No. 134 and Andreescu, the 2019 U.S. Open champion, is ranked 167th.
Canada will look to become the first team since Czechia in 2016 to successfully defend its Billie Jean King Cup title.
Malaga will also host the Nov. 19-24 Davis Cup Final 8. The Canadian men qualified over the weekend with a 2-1 victory over Great Britain in Manchester.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
