third straight appearance<\/a> in the Rising Stars event, scored six points in the semifinal and four in the final for Team Vince. Buzelis previously was selected with G League Ignite in 2024 and as a Bulls rookie last year.<\/p>\nThe NBA\u2019s rookies, sophomores and G League prospects opened the All-Star weekend at the Los Angeles Clippers\u2019 Intuit Dome with this four-team tournament of three games played to a set point total.<\/p>\n
While Edgecombe was the most impactful player, he didn\u2019t have the most memorable bucket: San Antonio guard Dylan Harper ended the first semifinal by scoring the game-winner over Ron Harper Jr., his older brother.<\/p>\n
Dylan Harper then scored eight more points in the final for Team Melo while teaming up with his Spurs teammate, Stephon Castle, last season\u2019s Rookie of the Year and Rising Stars MVP.<\/p>\n
Castle made a putback dunk off Jeremiah Fears\u2019 miss to pull Team Melo within one point of victory, but Edgecombe drew a foul from Donovan Clingan and coolly hit both free throws to end it at 25-24.<\/p>\n
Edgecombe was motivated by the presence of his 76ers backcourt mate, All-Star Tyrese Maxey, who watched from courtside.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe (said) he ain\u2019t coming to watch if I ain\u2019t going to play hard,\u201d Edgecombe said. \u201cI was like, \u2018Man, I\u2019m going to play hard so at least it\u2019s not a waste of his time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, the lackadaisical efforts that have plagued the All-Star Game in recent years wasn\u2019t nearly as prevalent in this Rising Stars showcase, and Edgecombe said that\u2019s largely because of the motivational efforts of the four NBA veterans who led the teams: Vince Carter, Carmelo Anthony, Tracy McGrady and Austin Rivers.<\/p>\n
When the vets were picking their teams two weeks ago, Edgecombe told Carter to choose him if he wanted to win.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Carter) was telling us, \u2018Just go! Just go! Keep playing hard!\u2019\u201d Edgecombe said. \u201cAnd we feed off of that. We just started rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edgecombe scored nearly half of his team\u2019s 41 points \u2014 including the last 10 in a row \u2014 while winning the second semifinal. Edgecombe didn\u2019t have to carry his team in the final, but the No. 3 pick in last year\u2019s draft still scored its final four points.<\/p>\n
Family feud<\/p>\n
Dylan Harper called game in the first semifinal with a succession of moves that could have been learned on the driveway at home, bullying Ron Jr. into the paint before hitting a step-back jumper.<\/p>\n
Dylan stuck out his tongue in gleeful celebration of only his second basket in the semifinal, and their famous father laughed heartily at courtside.<\/p>\n
Ron Jr., a Celtics prospect with 21 games of NBA experience, is six years older than Dylan, the No. 2 pick in last summer\u2019s draft \u2014 but the kid brother knew he could do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think I\u2019ve never beat him one-on-one (before)?\u201d Dylan asked with mock exasperation.<\/p>\n
Flagg down<\/p>\n
The Rising Stars game wasn\u2019t a full showcase of the NBA\u2019s top young talent because No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg dropped out of the game due to injury, as did Washington\u2019s Alex Sarr and Memphis\u2019 Cedric Coward.<\/p>\n
Edgecombe hit three 3-pointers during his scoring barrage in the first semifinal to win his duel with Charlotte\u2019s Kon Knueppel, who scored just four points. The two rookies are the only serious contenders with Flagg for the Rookie of the Year award.<\/p>\n
Hometown hero<\/p>\n
The event got off to a rousing start when Clippers prospect Yanic Konan Niederh\u00e4user dunked a lob from Ron Harper Jr. for the first basket of the night. The Swiss big man drafted last summer by the All-Star weekend hosts got raucous cheers from the fans in The Wall, an extra-steep supporters section installed at Intuit Dome by Clippers owner Steve Ballmer.<\/p>\n
Niederh\u00e4user led his losing team with 11 points in the first semifinal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INGLEWOOD, Calif. \u2014 V.J. Edgecombe seems quietly confident he\u2019ll be at an NBA All-Star weekend quite soon to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3771],"tags":[7,920,919,329,3824,973,6,7218,12398,38922,39618],"class_list":{"0":"post-602301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bulls","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bulls","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-chicago-bulls","12":"tag-chicagobulls","13":"tag-matas-buzelis","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nba-all-star-game","16":"tag-nba-all-star-weekend","17":"tag-nba-rising-stars","18":"tag-rising-stars"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116067721859475352","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}