1978 NBA All-Star Game

Result

MVP: Randy Smith

Box score

Bench (10+ points): Randy Smith (27), Doug Collins (14), Bob McAdoo (14)

Bench (10+ points): Lionel Hollins (10), Walter Davis (10), Artis Gilmore (10)

Game context

The 1978 All-Star Game was played February 5 at the Omni in Atlanta, the city's first time hosting the event, before 15,491 fans. Julius Erving of the Philadelphia 76ers led the fan balloting into the game, but it was a reserve who stole the show: Buffalo Braves guard Randy Smith came off the bench to score a game-high 27 points on efficient shooting, adding seven rebounds and six assists, and was named MVP for the East's 133-125 win. The game had an unusual arc. Jack Ramsay's West squad jumped out to a 39-28 first-quarter lead and appeared to be cruising, but Billy Cunningham's East chipped away steadily — trailing just 66-57 at the half and 100-91 through three quarters — before exploding for 41 points in the fourth quarter against just 25 for the West to turn a competitive game into a comfortable eight-point win. Beyond Smith, the East got a balanced scoring effort: Doug Collins added 14 points and eight assists off the bench, Julius Erving contributed 16 points and eight rebounds, and Larry Kenon chipped in 16 as well. For the West, David Thompson led all scorers with 22 points, Paul Westphal added 20, and the Portland Trail Blazers' championship-caliber frontcourt combination of Bill Walton (15 points, 10 rebounds) and Maurice Lucas (12 points, a game-high 13 rebounds) started alongside Rick Barry, who scored 15. The 1978 game marked the Atlanta Hawks' first turn hosting the event since the franchise's earlier stops in Milwaukee and St. Louis, and it came during a period when the NBA was still stabilizing rosters and travel patterns following the prior year's ABA-NBA merger — several of the game's featured players, including Erving, Thompson, and Malone reserve Moses Malone, had spent significant chunks of their careers in the ABA before it folded. Randy Smith's MVP turn was a genuine surprise pick relative to the game's bigger names; Smith was in the midst of an NBA-record ironman streak of consecutive games played (which would eventually reach 906 games) built on a reputation for tireless conditioning, and his fourth-quarter energy off the bench was very much in character. The comfortable final margin belied how tight the contest had been for three quarters, with the East's sudden fourth-quarter surge — more than double the West's output in the period — deciding a game that had, for most of its length, looked like it belonged to the Western Conference.

Sources

• Basketball-Reference — NBA All-Star Game History
• Basketball-Reference — NBA & ABA All-Star Game MVP (Kobe Bryant Trophy)
• Wikipedia — 1978 NBA All-Star Game
• Basketball-Reference — 1978 NBA All-Star Game Box Score