See this story at BrooklynDaily.com.
By Brandon Robinson
Brooklyn Daily
New Orleans, LA — The National Basketball Associations’s 63rd All Star Weekend featured the league’s top talent, including Mason Plumlee and Joe Johnson of the Brooklyn Nets.
Plumlee competed in the Rising Stars game on Friday for Team Webber, finishing with 20 points, seven rebounds, four steals and a huge block on Pistons center Andre Drummond. Plumlee credited the advice he received from Nets teammates before he left for the New Orleans.
“They told me ‘go do whatever you want because when you get back you’re limited again,’ ” Plumlee said. “They said ‘have fun with it, take your shots, and all that stupid stuff you try in practice — go ahead and do it in the game.’ ”
Johnson competed in the three-point shootout where he finished with a score of only 11, the lowest tally of the bunch. He also played in the All Star-game on Sunday.
The East’s 163–155 victory over the West was a record setter. Both teams combined for 318 points, shattering the previous record of 303 set in 1987. Johnson entered the game at the end of the first quarter and played significant minutes in the second and third. He finished with five points after hitting a trey in the third quarter.
This was his seventh All Star appearance, but it stood out for Johnson, especially with how strong the Nets ended the first half of the season.
“This will probably be the most memorable one out of all of them,” Johnson said. “Being able to have a great month of January is what got me here and what I’ve done personally and what we’ve done as a team.”
At 24–27, the Nets start the second half of the season with five games on the West Coast. Plumlee believes the team can have a new beginning.
“It’s a fresh start coming back after break,” he said. “That West Coast road trip, we have to get some wins on the road. We haven’t been on the road in a while for a long stretch.”
Johnson said health and lack of nagging injuries will be key to their success going forward. The Nets, who have one of the league’s oldest rosters, have struggled playing on consecutive nights.
“I think once we get healthy, we’ll develop some consistency where we’re a pretty good team on a day-to-day basis,” Johnson said.
Johnson and Plumlee weren’t the only all stars with Brooklyn ties. The Chicago Bulls’ Joakim Noah, a former Poly Prep standout, finished the All-Star Game with six points, five assists and five rebounds for the East.
‘‘The game got close,’’ Noah said. ‘‘That’s when the fun usually begins.’’