Tyrese Haliburton hits 5 three-pointers to give East 53-47 first quarter lead on West

INDIANAPOLIS — Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers and his staff will direct Giannis Antetokounmpo, Damian Lillard and the Eastern Conference all-stars against the Western Conference tonight at Gainbridge Fieldhouse at 7 p.m.

Tyrese Haliburton hit 5 three-pointers in a row to give the East a 53-47 lead after the first quarter. Lillard had nine points and Antetokounmpo had six. The West was led by Kevin Durant and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (seven points each).

Is Giannis playing in the all-star game?

Yes. Antetokounmpo was the leading vote-getter of all Eastern Conference players, so he is serving as a captain for the team. He has been dealing with tendinitis in his right patellar since Feb. 4, but he has not missed a game due to the injury.

Follow Bucks guard Damian Lillard Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo in tonight’s NBA All-Star Game from Indianapolis.

Who is starting for the Eastern Conference?

Philadelphia center Joel Embiid was voted in as a starter, but the league’s reigning MVP had knee surgery and is missing the game. So, Rivers had had to choose a replacement: Miami’s Bam Adebayo.

“I looked at big Joel out, what other five do we have on the team and Bam got the honor,” Rivers said. “It’s good for him, too.”

Tyrese Haliburton picks opening play of All-Star game

Rivers was mic’d up for the Saturday practice session with his team and recognized Oshkosh native Tyrese Haliburton in his home arena, as the Indiana Pacers point guard was voted into a starting spot.

“You pick the first play, which I will run for you as the first play,” Rivers said. “In honor of the Pacers, you have to put in the first play of the game alright? You know what you’re gonna run? Is it going to be for you?”

In true point guard fashion, Haliburton was picked up on Rivers’ mic saying it would not be for him.

Who are the Western Conference all-starters?What is the all-star game format?

The league reverted to a traditional 48-minute game between the Eastern and Western Conference all-stars for the first time since 2017. From 2018-23 the teams were drafted by the top vote-getters and the league introduced a longer pre-game spectacle to showcase the players and the draft, and then included a longer halftime for performances.

Commissioner Adam Silver said the league changed back to the conference format in consultation with the players association because they felt they drifted too far away from the game itself – leading to less competitive environment.

“One of the things we heard from the players, and I think this goes to the draft, was on one hand now you’re telling us you want us to play this as if it were a real game, but there’s nothing about it that feels like a real game,” Silver said in his annual All-Star press conference on Saturday. “You have us standing up on stage, operating through this draft. Then once the intros start, we get cold, we’re standing there forever, we don’t get to go through our usual routines. Then come halftime you’re adding not just a little bit of extra time but a lot of extra time, so we get cold in the locker rooms.

“I think we sat down with the players and we listened to them, and we said, all right, we have to return to basketball, back to basketball, so to speak. It’s about the game. That’s ultimately how we’re going to be judged.”

Bucks guard Damian Lillard agreed as he experienced it first hand last year when he was a Western Conference all-star as a member of the Portland Trail Blazers but Giannis Antetokounmpo drafted him – so Lillard had to get all his stuff moved to a different locker room.

“The way it was it just kind of created a; it was time consuming,” the Bucks guard said. “You’re doing the draft you don’t know which uniform you’re gong to be in. I think there were it was a lot of things that happen behind the scenes that made it just a little more difficult for us to be able to prepare like we was going to play. Nobody is going out there and get hurt when we don’t have the time that we usually get to get warmed up and go through our routines if we’re going to go out there and really play, just because of everything that comes with the all-star game.

“I think keeping it simple like that, we know what locker room we’re going to be in, you know the team already, it’s less of an event that’s happening before the game and now we can kind of go out there and it’ll be – obviously it won’t be a playoff game – but it won’t be a layup line either. I don’t think.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Haliburton hits 5 three-pointers to give East 53-47 first quarter lead