1976 NBA All-Star Game

Result

MVP: Dave Bing

Box score

Bench (10+ points): Dave Cowens (16), Doug Collins (12), George McGinnis (10)

Bench (10+ points): Fred Brown (14)

Game context

The 1976 All-Star Game was staged February 3 at the Spectrum in Philadelphia, part of the city's role as a hub of the United States bicentennial celebrations that year, and drew 17,511 fans. It carries two lasting footnotes in the event's history: it was the last All-Star Game played at the Spectrum, and the last one played on a weeknight (a Tuesday) before the league settled permanently on Sunday afternoons. It was also the final all-NBA edition of the game before that summer's ABA-NBA merger folded in Julius Erving, George Gervin, and other rival-league stars for good, meaning the roster pool would look meaningfully different by the following February. The game itself was tightly fought into the third quarter. Al Attles's West squad built a 50-45 halftime edge behind a 27-17 second-quarter surge, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was dominant in the loss, finishing with 22 points on 9-of-16 shooting and a game-high 15 rebounds in 36 minutes. Tom Heinsohn's East group flipped the game in the third quarter, outscoring the West 38-30 to lead 83-80 entering the fourth, then closed the door with a 40-29 final period to win going away, 123-109. Washington Bullets guard Dave Bing was named MVP, finishing with 16 points on 7-of-11 shooting, four assists, and three rebounds in 26 minutes — a modest box score by the standards of some MVP performances in this era, but one that came in a game where the East's starting five otherwise struggled to find offense before the fourth-quarter breakaway. Bing got help off the bench from center Dave Cowens, who logged a team-high 16 rebounds to go with 16 points, and Buffalo's Bob McAdoo, who led all scorers with 22 points on 10-of-14 shooting from the East's starting lineup. For the West, Rick Barry added 17 points and Fred Brown scored 14 off the bench, but no one could match the East's fourth-quarter push. This was Bing's second and final career All-Star MVP award (he had also won it in 1968), capping a run that included nine total All-Star selections across a Hall of Fame career split between Detroit and, by 1976, Washington. The 1976 game sits at a genuine inflection point for the sport: played the same year the NBA absorbed four ABA franchises (Denver, Indiana, New York/San Antonio, and New Jersey), meaning the league's roster of stars, and thus its All-Star player pool, would be transformed almost overnight. The bicentennial staging in Philadelphia — a city closely associated with the nation's founding — gave the game a ceremonial backdrop distinct from the more routine midseason exhibitions that had preceded it.

Sources

• Basketball-Reference — NBA All-Star Game History
• Basketball-Reference — NBA & ABA All-Star Game MVP (Kobe Bryant Trophy)
• Wikipedia — 1976 NBA All-Star Game
• Basketball-Reference — 1976 NBA All-Star Game Box Score