MVP Andre Drummond leads Team Hill to Rising Stars Challenge victory
Andre Drummond had a historic Friday night, in so much as a performance in the NBA's Rising Stars Challenge can be considered historic.
And it can, because it's a fun event and it was still a monster performance.
Drummond set the Rising Stars Challenge record by grabbing 25 rebounds, topping DeJuan Blair's 23 from 2010, and added 30 points for good measure. Drummond shot 12-of-21 from the floor, a fairly easy task when you grab 14 offensive rebounds.
For his efforts, Drummond was awarded the game's Most Valuable Player award, though it didn't come without some funny complications.
While Drummond didn't have many enormous dunks, a usual staple of these games, he did make the highlight reel once, when Tim Hardaway Jr. tried to pull a J.R. Smith on him:
In fact, Hardaway Jr. was a highlight machine in this game. He hit seven triples en route to a 36-point performance, the fourth-highest point total in the history of the game, and also went toe-to-toe with Dion Waiters (31 points) for an incredible stretch of play in the second half:
Big stat lines were commonplace in the end, as Team Hill topped Team Webber 142-136, a point total that somehow seems pedestrian given the game's history. Here are some of the notable performances:
- Mason Plumlee scored 20 points on 10-of-13 shooting with seven rebounds and four steals, but it was brother Miles with perhaps the highlight of the night, a massive block on Anthony Davis.
- Davis had 16 points, eight rebounds, four assists, three steals and two blocks. In other words, a disappointing game.
- Bradley Beal had 21 points, five rebounds, four assists and a pair of steals, hitting four threes.
- Michael Carter-Williams had a game-high nine assists to go along with 17 points and six rebounds.
- The teams combined to shoot 57.1 percent and score 278 points on 208 possessions, a ridiculous 133.7 points per 100 possessions.