1983 NBA All-Star Game

Result

MVP: Julius Erving

Box score

MVP: Julius Erving.

Bench (10+ points): Sidney Moncrief (20), Robert Parish (13)

Bench (10+ points): Jim Paxson (11), Jamaal Wilkes (10)

Game context

The 1983 All-Star Game, the 33rd edition, was played February 13 at the Forum in Inglewood, California — the third time the Los Angeles area had hosted the event — before 17,505 fans and a national CBS broadcast. The game is remembered today at least as much for what happened before tip-off as for the action on the court: Marvin Gaye's now-legendary rendition of the national anthem, sung slowly over a drum-machine backing track rather than the traditional band arrangement, stands as one of his last major televised performances (he was murdered by his father roughly fourteen months later) and became widely rediscovered decades afterward, including in a prominent 2008 Nike commercial. On the floor, Philadelphia 76ers forward Julius Erving was named MVP for the Eastern Conference's 132-123 win, his seventh All-Star selection, scoring 25 points on efficient shooting with six rebounds and three assists. Billy Cunningham's East, playing without a single trailing quarter, built an early cushion and never relinquished it, getting a 20-point game from Sidney Moncrief off the bench and 19 points, 13 rebounds, and seven assists from Larry Bird, along with 19 points and seven assists from Isiah Thomas, in a well-distributed scoring effort (57-of-108 shooting as a team, .528). For Pat Riley's Western Conference, Magic Johnson was spectacular in defeat, dishing a game-high 16 assists to go with 17 points and five rebounds, while Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in his 13th All-Star appearance, added 20 points and six rebounds. Alex English scored 14 points, and reserves Jamaal Wilkes and Jim Paxson each added double-digit scoring, but the West's 55-of-101 shooting from the field (.545) — actually a better percentage than the East's — was undone by a 24-19 deficit in free-throw attempts and a wider gap in assists on the night for a team that never led by more than a handful of points. The defending NBA champion 76ers' core of Erving, Moses Malone (who added 10 points and eight rebounds), and Maurice Cheeks anchored the East's roster fresh off Philadelphia's title the previous June, giving the East's win an extra sheen of legitimacy from a team that would go on to sweep the Finals again that same season. The 1983 game endures in popular memory less for its final score than for Gaye's anthem, one of the most celebrated pregame performances in American sports history. The Eastern Conference's win here also foreshadowed that June's NBA Finals, where Erving's 76ers swept Riley's Lakers in four games to win the championship, giving Philadelphia's core an extra measure of validation for a group that had come up short in the Finals in three of the previous six seasons. Moses Malone, who would be named that Finals' MVP a few months later, added 10 points and eight rebounds in a quieter supporting role in this All-Star tune-up.

Sources

• Basketball-Reference — NBA All-Star Game History
• Basketball-Reference — NBA & ABA All-Star Game MVP (Kobe Bryant Trophy)
• Wikipedia — 1983 NBA All-Star Game
• Basketball-Reference — 1983 NBA All-Star Game Box Score