1991 NBA All-Star Game

Result

MVP: Charles Barkley

Box score

MVP: Charles Barkley.

Bench (10+ points): Dominique Wilkins (12)

Bench (10+ points): Clyde Drexler (12)

Game context

The 1991 All-Star Game, played February 10 at Charlotte Coliseum in North Carolina, was the first All-Star Game broadcast by NBC after the network took over the league's national television package from CBS, which had carried the game for the previous seventeen years. It was also the first game played under a new rule — since nicknamed the \"Pat Riley Rule\" after the coach whose repeated consecutive appearances had prompted it — barring coaches from leading their conference's All-Star team in back-to-back seasons. Philadelphia 76ers forward Charles Barkley was named MVP after an overpowering all-around performance: 17 points on 7-of-15 shooting and a staggering 22 rebounds, the headline number in a game the East won narrowly, 116-114. Michael Jordan actually led all scorers with 26 points on 10-of-25 shooting, adding five rebounds and five assists, and Patrick Ewing added 18 points and 10 rebounds, but it was Barkley's dominance on the glass that earned him the trophy over his higher-scoring teammate. The game's signature moment came late, on the Western Conference side: with the East clinging to a narrow lead, Phoenix guard Kevin Johnson appeared to convert a potential game-tying or go-ahead three-pointer, only for officials to rule the basket void because of basket interference committed against the shot by Karl Malone, wiping out points that would otherwise have altered the outcome. Malone finished with 16 points and 11 rebounds, and David Robinson matched that scoring total with 16 points and six rebounds for the West, while Magic Johnson contributed 16 points (including two three-pointers) and Chris Mullin added 13. Injuries also shaped the rosters: both Isiah Thomas and Larry Bird, originally selected, were unable to play, with Hersey Hawkins stepping in for Bird while no direct replacement was named for Thomas — instead, the East coaching staff opted to carry an extra reserve, voting in eight bench players rather than the customary seven. Joe Dumars and Bernard King moved into the East's starting lineup in the injured stars' places. Coming at the tail end of a decade that had seen the game's broadcast rights, coaching rules, and format all evolve rapidly, the 1991 edition — with its network switch, new coaching restriction, and controversial late-game officiating call — packed an unusual amount of structural and dramatic significance into a relatively low-scoring, tightly contested affair by the standards of the era's typically high-scoring exhibitions. The new Charlotte franchise's turn hosting the event, in only its third season of existence, reflected the NBA's rapid expansion into new Sun Belt markets during this period, following the same wave that had brought franchises to Orlando, Minnesota, and Miami in recent years. Barkley's 22-rebound outing remains one of the more dominant single-game rebounding performances by an All-Star Game MVP, on par with the boards-heavy honors won by Bob Pettit decades earlier in the event's first decade.

Sources

• Basketball-Reference — NBA All-Star Game History
• Basketball-Reference — NBA & ABA All-Star Game MVP (Kobe Bryant Trophy)
• Wikipedia — 1991 NBA All-Star Game
• Basketball-Reference — 1991 NBA All-Star Game Box Score