1958 NBA All-Star Game

Result

MVP: Bob Pettit

Box score

Bench (10+ points): Paul Arizin (24), Neil Johnston (14), Kenny Sears (12)

Bench (10+ points): Gene Shue (18), Jack Twyman (18), Larry Foust (10)

Game context

The 1958 All-Star Game, held January 21 at Kiel Auditorium, gave St. Louis its first turn hosting the event and produced a curious split result: the East won the game comfortably, 130-118, yet the West's Bob Pettit walked away with the Most Valuable Player award anyway, on the strength of a monster individual line of 28 points and a game-high 26 rebounds. It remains one of the clearer examples in the award's history of MVP voters recognizing an individually dominant performance on the losing side rather than simply crediting a player from the winning team, a testament to just how overwhelming Pettit's rebounding was that night even as his Western teammates struggled to keep pace. The East's win was built on balance and efficient bench scoring: reserve forward Paul Arizin poured in 24 points on a sharp 11-of-17 shooting, floor general Bob Cousy directed the offense to the tune of 20 points and 10 assists as a starter, and Bill Russell, in his second NBA season, controlled the defensive glass with 11 rebounds to go with 11 points. The East pulled away steadily across all four quarters (30-31, 31-35, 31-25, 38-27), never trailing by a wide margin but methodically building a cushion that Pettit's rebounding alone could not overcome. The West got other solid contributions off the bench — Gene Shue scored 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting and Jack Twyman added 18 on 8-of-13 — but no other Western player came close to matching Pettit's monstrous 26-board effort, and the East's superior depth carried the day. The combined 248 points scored briefly stood as an All-Star scoring high at the time, before subsequent, higher-paced games (accelerated by the 24-second clock's full maturation across the league) surpassed it within a few years. Red Auerbach again coached the East, extending Boston's central role in the series' competitive success during these years, while Alex Hannum, who had just taken over the St. Louis Hawks, coached the West in front of the hometown Kiel Auditorium crowd of 12,854. St. Louis's hosting of this game, the city's first, came at a moment when the Hawks were building toward their own championship — Pettit and the Hawks would go on to win the 1958 NBA Finals against Boston that same spring, the only Finals loss the Russell-era Celtics dynasty would suffer over a stretch of 13 seasons — making Pettit's individually dominant, if team-losing, MVP performance here an early preview of the St. Louis-Boston rivalry that would define the league's championship rounds for the balance of the decade.

Sources

• Basketball-Reference — NBA All-Star Game History
• Basketball-Reference — NBA & ABA All-Star Game MVP (Kobe Bryant Trophy)
• Wikipedia — 1958 NBA All-Star Game