1955 NBA All-Star Game

Result

MVP: Bill Sharman

Box score

Bench (10+ points): Bill Sharman (15)

Bench (10+ points): Vern Mikkelsen (16)

Game context

The fifth All-Star Game, played January 18, 1955, returned to Madison Square Garden for a second consecutive year, making New York the first city to host the game in back-to-back seasons. The contest was tightly played and low-scoring by the standards of a league that, later that year, would introduce the 24-second shot clock and permanently change its offensive rhythm; the two teams traded close quarters throughout (21-21 in the first, 28-29 in the second, 21-21 in the third) before the East pulled decisively away in the fourth, 30-20, to secure a 100-91 win. Boston's Bill Sharman was the difference-maker in that final period, scoring 10 of his 15 total points in the fourth quarter alone as the East salted the game away, and he was named the game's Most Valuable Player for his closing burst. Teammate Bob Cousy, Sharman's Celtics backcourt partner, led all scorers in the game with 20 points, giving Boston's two guards a stranglehold on the game's offensive highlights and underscoring just how central the Celtics' backcourt tandem had become to the East's identity in these early All-Star years — Cousy and Sharman would go on to combine for a remarkable string of All-Star selections and MVP-caliber performances across the decade as the architects of Boston's fast-break style under Red Auerbach. Coaching duties that year went to Al Cervi of Syracuse for the East and Charley Eckman of Fort Wayne for the West, both chosen, per the standard selection practice of the era, because their teams had led their respective divisions as of the point in the season when All-Star coaching assignments were determined (typically entering the month of January). The game was played against the backdrop of a league on the cusp of enormous rule-driven change: that same season, Syracuse Nationals owner Danny Biasone would push through the 24-second shot clock, a reform aimed directly at eliminating the kind of stalling and grinding, foul-plagued basketball that had characterized several recent championship series, including the Nationals' own seven-game 1954 Finals loss to Minneapolis, a series that featured a 62-60 game frequently cited as exhibit A for why the clock was needed. The 1955 All-Star Game itself, while competitive and reasonably paced for its time, still reflected the set-shot-dominated, low-possession style of an NBA about to be transformed; within a year, scoring totals across the league — All-Star Game included — would begin climbing toward the far higher numbers that became the norm for the rest of the 1950s and 1960s.

Sources

• Basketball-Reference — NBA All-Star Game History
• Basketball-Reference — NBA & ABA All-Star Game MVP (Kobe Bryant Trophy)
• Wikipedia — 1955 NBA All-Star Game