NBA recap: All-Star roundup, 3 storylines to monitor and games to watch

NBA All-Star weekend has concluded, which finally places full attention on the regular season’s remaining games leading up to the postseason.

The NBA’s 2019 All-Star festivities have come and gone with another three days of missed dunk attempts, celebrity sightings and the world’s greatest players sweating out hangovers during the All-Star Game after a couple nights of partying. Expectations should be lukewarm in terms of must-see entertainment, but this weekend had moments that will be in highlights for the foreseeable future.

The Taco Bell Skills Challenge saw Jayson Tatum best Trae Young with a half-court shot, and then go on to stake a claim that his Boston Celtics will win the NBA Finals this season. This happened after Young beat Luka Doncic, two players that will be linked forever due to their draft-day trade. Overall, the Skills Challenge needs some tweaks (no three-pass limit, complete the pass), but is a nice table-setter for the rest of the evening’s events.

The MTN DEW 3-Point Contest continues to be the marquee competition on All-Star Saturday as Joe Harris held on to beat Stephen Curry and Buddy Hield in the final round. Harris (26 points to Curry’s 24), was awesome in both rounds, and played spoiler to Curry in front of his hometown. Steph, however, did have the highlight of the event after ending his first round with 10 consecutive makes to post the night’s highest score at 27.

The AT&T Slam Dunk Contest had some moments of brilliance, but felt a little flat with all of the missed attempts. Hamidou Diallo won the contest, with his honey dip dunk over Shaquille’ O Neal being the dunk of the night.

Dennis Smith Jr. made the finals after catching a lob from music artist J. Cole while donning Cole’s high school jersey. John Collins and Miles Bridges are powerful in-game dunkers and brought creativity, but failed to impress in their only two dunks.

The All-Star Game went as expected. Both teams were moving at a snail’s pace for the first half, likely getting the alcohol out of their system while not wanting to risk injury in an exhibition, but the game saw some defense in the final quarter. Team LeBron came back to beat Team Giannis, 178-164.

Kevin Durant claimed his second All-Star Game MVP with 31 points, but Steph Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo claimed the highlight of the night for sure. Other great moments included Dirk Nowitzki draining all three of his 3-point attempts and LeBron James and Dwyane Wade combining for one more picturesque alley-oop.

The on-court events were what we’ve come to expect from All-Star weekend, but the hometown environment Charlotte and the NBA brought was the coolest aspect. The league did a great job of using the Currys as pseudo-ambassadors for the weekend, had DSJ, a local Carolina kid in the Dunk Contest, and then booked J. Cole for the halftime performance. Charlotte as a city was represented well throughout the weekend.

But the conclusion of All-Star Weekend means that trade talk is over, the distraction of All-Star events are done and it’s strictly on-court storylines until the summer. Here are three storylines to watch for the rest of the regular season.