2002 NBA All-Star Game

Result

MVP: Kobe Bryant

Box score

Bench (10+ points): Ray Allen (15), Tracy McGrady (24), Paul Pierce (19), Alonzo Mourning (13)

Bench (10+ points): Dirk Nowitzki (12), Gary Payton (18), Peja Stojakovic (11), Wally Szczerbiak (10)

Game context

The 2002 All-Star Game, played February 10 in Philadelphia, was defined almost as much by its crowd's hostility as by the final score. Kobe Bryant, a Philadelphia native who had left the city to become the co-star of the rival Lakers dynasty then in the process of beating the 76ers in the 2001 NBA Finals, was booed loudly by the hometown crowd throughout pregame introductions and the game itself. He answered with a game-high 31 points on efficient shooting, adding 5 rebounds and 5 assists to lead a West team that pulled away in the second half and won going away, 135-120, en route to his second career All-Star MVP award — a result that, by most contemporary accounts, only sharpened the crowd's antagonism rather than winning them over. The East's most memorable individual moment belonged to Tracy McGrady, who came off the bench to score 25 points and authored what is still frequently cited as one of the signature highlights in All-Star Game history: a self-alley-oop in which he tossed the ball off the backboard to himself before catching it in stride and dunking, a play that circulated widely on highlight reels for years afterward and helped cement McGrady's reputation as one of the league's most spectacular open-court scorers. Michael Jordan, in the midst of his second comeback with the Washington Wizards, made his 13th career All-Star appearance, a reminder of just how long his career had already spanned by that point. Injuries reshaped both rosters before tip-off: Vince Carter and Shaquille O'Neal were both unable to play, with Baron Davis and Elton Brand stepping in as replacements, while Jason Kidd and Chris Webber were elevated into the starting lineup in their place. The game drew 19,581 fans to the First Union Center (later renamed the Wells Fargo Center), and it carries a notable footnote in NBA broadcast history: this was the last All-Star Game to air on network television (NBC) until the league returned to over-the-air network broadcasting with NBC's revival of NBA coverage beginning with the 2026 game, meaning every edition in between — the entire 2003-2025 stretch — aired on cable outlets, primarily TNT. With O'Neal sidelined, Bryant effectively had the Lakers' spotlight to himself for the weekend, and his MVP performance in front of a jeering hometown crowd became one of the enduring storylines of his career-long, complicated relationship with Philadelphia, a dynamic that would resurface repeatedly whenever the Lakers played the 76ers or the league returned to the city for other events in the years that followed.

Sources

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