1982 NBA All-Star Game

Result

MVP: Larry Bird

Box score

MVP: Larry Bird.

Bench (10+ points): Robert Parish (21), Micheal Ray Richardson (10)

Bench (10+ points): Magic Johnson (16), Jack Sikma (10), Moses Malone (12), Norm Nixon (14)

Game context

The 1982 All-Star Game was played January 31 at Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey — the only full All-Star Game the state of New Jersey has ever hosted — in front of 20,149 fans. Boston's Bill Fitch and Los Angeles's Pat Riley coached the two squads, having qualified by virtue of the Celtics and Lakers sitting atop their respective conferences at the season's late-January cutoff, and their teams would go on to meet in that June's NBA Finals as well. Celtics forward Larry Bird was named MVP for a 4th-quarter-heavy performance, finishing with 19 points on 7-of-12 shooting, a game-high 12 rebounds, and five assists, delivering several of his biggest plays down the stretch as the East pulled away for a 120-118 win. The game was tight for three quarters — the East led just 63-61 at halftime and 90-89 after three — before Bird and a red-hot Robert Parish, who came off the bench to score 21 points on 9-of-12 shooting with seven rebounds, helped close it out in the final period, which the East won 30-29. Julius Erving added 16 points and eight rebounds in the East's starting lineup, and a 20-year-old Isiah Thomas, in just his second NBA season, contributed 12 points off the bench. For the West, Seattle's Gus Williams was the game's leading scorer with 22 points on 9-of-19 shooting, adding a team-high nine assists. Adrian Dantley scored 12 points on a highly efficient 6-of-8 shooting, and Magic Johnson, coming off the bench for Riley's own team, delivered a strong all-around line of 16 points, seven assists, and four rebounds in 23 minutes. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, by contrast, struggled badly from the floor, going just 1-of-10 for two points, though he still contributed defensively and on the boards. The 1982 game's staging in New Jersey reflected the geographic sprawl of the New York metropolitan area's basketball market at the time — the Nets had themselves relocated from New York to New Jersey only a few years earlier — and it remains a genuine one-off in the event's history; no other New Jersey venue has hosted a full All-Star Game since, though the state's arenas have occasionally hosted individual All-Star Weekend events. Bird's MVP award was the first of what would eventually be a decorated career, though it remained his only career All-Star Game MVP honor despite twelve total All-Star selections. Isiah Thomas, playing in his rookie season, contributed 12 points off the East bench in an early sign of the floor game that would soon make him a perennial All-Star himself. The coaching pairing of Fitch and Riley also proved to be a preview of things to come: the Celtics and Lakers, the two franchises these coaches led, would go on to meet in three separate NBA Finals over the following six seasons (1984, 1985, and 1987), continuing one of the sport's most storied rivalries into a new decade.

Sources

• Basketball-Reference — NBA All-Star Game History
• Basketball-Reference — NBA & ABA All-Star Game MVP (Kobe Bryant Trophy)
• Wikipedia — 1982 NBA All-Star Game
• Basketball-Reference — 1982 NBA All-Star Game Box Score