2013 NBA All-Star Game

Result

MVP: Chris Paul

Box score

MVP: Chris Paul.

Bench (10+ points): James Harden (15), Tony Parker (13), Russell Westbrook (14)

Bench (10+ points): Kyrie Irving (15), Paul George (17), Luol Deng (10)

Game context

The 2013 All-Star Game, played February 17 at Toyota Center in Houston — the third time the city hosted the event — was decided by playmaking rather than sheer scoring volume. Chris Paul of the Los Angeles Clippers directed the West's offense throughout, finishing with 20 points, 15 assists, and 4 steals, and earned the MVP award for a performance built more on controlling tempo and setting up teammates than on individual scoring outbursts. The West led modestly for most of the game, up by only about eight points through three quarters, before pulling away with a stronger fourth-quarter push to secure the 143-138 win. Kevin Durant led all scorers with 30 points, becoming the first player in NBA history to score 30 or more points in three consecutive All-Star Games, extending a streak of individual scoring dominance that had begun with his 36-point MVP effort the year before. Kobe Bryant, appearing in what would prove to be one of his final full-health All-Star seasons before injuries curtailed the remainder of his career, contributed 9 points and 8 assists while also making his presence felt defensively, blocking LeBron James twice in the closing minutes — a reminder of Bryant's competitive intensity even in what was ostensibly an exhibition setting. For the East, Carmelo Anthony led with 26 points and 12 rebounds, while James added 19 points but shot inefficiently at 7-of-18 from the field, an uncharacteristically rough shooting night for a player who had dominated several prior All-Star Games. The surrounding All-Star Weekend introduced a structural change of its own that year: the Saturday night skills events shifted to a conference-based team competition format for the first time, with players competing as members of their East or West squads across the Skills Challenge, Three-Point Contest, and other events rather than purely as individuals, a format experiment that would itself evolve in subsequent years. Paul's MVP award, earned through pure facilitation rather than dominant scoring, stood out as something of an outlier in an event historically decided by whichever star scored most prolifically, and it highlighted the Clippers point guard's growing stature as one of the league's premier floor generals during the early-2010s period when his Clippers teams, alongside Blake Griffin, were among the league's most entertaining regular-season attractions even as deep playoff success remained elusive. This was also the last edition of the traditional East-versus-West game before the run of increasingly high-scoring, defense-optional contests that would characterize the mid-2010s and eventually help prompt the league's 2018 shift to the captain's draft format, making Paul's low-possession, playmaking-driven MVP performance something of a final showcase for the format's more measured, half-court-oriented style of play before scoring totals began climbing sharply in subsequent years.

Sources

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