The 2022 NBA All-Star Game, which marks the halfway point of the 2021-22 season, was held Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022. The event was held at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, home of the Cleveland Cavaliers, in downtown Cleveland. This was the second time since 1997 that the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse hosted the event. 

In 1997, the All-Star Game was called by its original name, Gund Arena, named after the original owner of the Cavaliers, Gordon Gund. In addition, it is the third time that the Cavaliers hosted the game, though it was held at the Richfield Coliseum in 1981.

This year’s game marks the NBA All-Star Game’s 75 year anniversary. In this year’s All-Star Game (as in the 2020 All-Star Game), the team that scored the most points in three of the four quarters would receive a cash prize. This prize is then donated to a prearranged charity. If the score is tied during any of the three quarters, the pot would roll over.  

In the fourth quarter, the game is untimed, using the Elam Ending, meaning that the teams end the game by playing to a target score. Named after Ball State professor Nick Elam, it received more notice when it made its debut in the 2020 All-Star Game.  

In the 2020 game, the NBA took the highest score at the end of the third quarter and added 24 points in honor of Hall of Fame guard, Kobe Bryant, who tragically died in a plane crash in California along with nine other people, including his oldest daughter, Gianna. In the 2020 game, Team Giannis was leading Team LeBron, 133-124, at the end of the third quarter. The first team to score 157 points was the winner.

Anthony Scales, Yassen Hussein, Anthony Neal, Hamilton Wallace and Jake Eversole, players on the Lake Land College (LLC) Basketball team have some opposing opinions on who to root for.  Scales, Wallace and Eversole root for the Los Angeles Lakers, while Neal roots for the Chicago Bulls and Hussein roots for the Brooklyn Nets. 

While they have different teams that they are hoping to win, the five players were in unison in regards to this year’s All-Star Game. The players didn’t think the All-Star Game was competitive with no defense until the fourth quarter, if the game was close. These responses echoed the criticism of the NBA All-Star Game. Prior to the 1998-99 owner’s lock-out of the players, it was competitive, with a few exceptions.  

Up until the 1998 All-Star Game, held at the Madison Square Garden in New York, both teams were actually playing defense with scoring slightly higher than during the regular season. Beginning in the 2000 All-Star Game in Oakland, California, players decided to save themselves on defense unless the score was close at five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter and overtime.  The LLC Basketball players enjoy the dunk contest, 3-point shooting contest, the uniforms for the All-Star Game and the overall festival of the All-Star Weekend.