The 2026 NBA-All Star tournament occurred on Sun, Feb 15 and it featured three teams composed of a combined 24 active players from the NBA. Two of the teams were composed of American-born players exclusively, with one of them being filled with younger “stars” and the other composed of older veterans. The third team was the World team filled with international-born players or players whose immediate family holds foreign nationality. The tournament was conducted in round-robin fashion, with the first matchup being the USA Stars squad facing the World team. The winner of the first matchup would face the USA Stripes team of veterans, a squad that featured LeBron James in his 22nd All-Star appearance, Kevin Durant in his 16th All-Star appearance, Kawhi Leonard representing the Los Angeles Clippers in the team’s home arena, Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brunson, and Jaylen Brown. Among the replacement players put onto the USA Stripes squad were Brandon Ingram in his first All-Star Game appearance and De’Aaron Fox, who was selected as a replacement player and that forced a U.S-born player onto the World Squad. Speaking of the World team, they were a little short handed as Giannis Antetokounmpo and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander were both out with injuries and Luka Doncic was barely available with a hamstring injury that he suffered earlier this month. Healthy bodies on the international team featured Nikola Jokic, Victor Wembanyama, Jamal Murray, Pascal Siakam, Alperen Şengün, Deni Avdjia and American-born stars Karl-Anthony Towns(who has some Dominican Republic roots from his late mother’s side of his family) and Norman Powell(who was moved onto the World squad to make room for De’Aaron Fox on the USA Stripes team and his family has roots from Jamaica). Finally the USA Stars team was filled with younger American-born players such as Anthony Edwards, Devin Booker, Cade Cunningham, Tyrese Maxey, Jalen Duren, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Johnson and Scottie Barnes. This was going to be an interesting three-team format of the NBA All-Star Game and the first-ever matchup between the U.S and the World. Let’s see how it all went down in Inglewood.

Buzzer-Beater Madness In First Game Leads Into Shortened Overtime, Where An Unlikely Hero Takes The Game-Winning Shot And Makes It

The first game between the USA Stars and World team was a very close and thrilling matchup. For starters, the World squad built up a nine-point lead behind a grand effort from Victor Wembanyama and some good contributions from Karl-Anthony Towns, who made a couple of amazing three-pointers. But the young Stars came roaring back with a 10-2 run and in the final minute, Anthony Edwards made a game-tying three-pointer. The World squad had a chance to win the game with a buzzer-beating shot, but Norman Powell missed the game-winning three and the score was tied after 12 minutes of play. That didn’t mean the game was over, as the rule for determining the winning side of a quarter-long game in this format was whoever made it to or above five points first in an untimed overtime period.

The USA Stars got the first chance to score, with Edwards making a two-pointer. But Wemby came back and made a three-pointer for the World squad. With both teams one basket away from winning the first game, the Stars wasted no time as Scottie Barnes took a wide-open three-pointer and it went in to end the game. A 37-35 victory for the USA Stars gave them the early edge with a 1-0 record and they would face the USA Stripes next. The World squad would have to wait a little while for their next game, which would be a must-win game against Team Stripes. The leading scorer for the World team was Wembanyama with 14 points that came along with six rebounds and three impressive blocks. But very little came from Wemby’s World teammates other than 10 points from Towns and a combined nine between Deni Avdjia and Pascal Siakam. All players on the USA Stars squad scored in this first game, with Edwards leading the charge with 13 points that featured three made 3s. The next game was another juicy one between both USA squads, so let’s see how that one went.

Both American-Born Teams Duke It Out In Second Game of Tournament, But Another Thrilling Conclusion Happens As Another Random Hero Makes The Game-Winning Shot

The second game of this All-Star tournament came between both USA squads, with the young Stars facing the older Stripes squad. It turned out to be a more high scoring game with some offensive balance featured between both teams and less of a dominant hold on the lead from either side. The Stripes team did hold a six-point lead with a little over two and a half minutes remaining. But the young Stars came roaring back with some quick baskets from Edwards, Booker and Cunningham. However, LeBron James made a long three-point shot from the logo to restore the six-point lead for the Stripes with a little over one minute left on the clock.

In the final minute, the Stars scored a quick seven points in a row with baskets from Cunningham and Edwards. Following a late-three made by the Minnesota Timberwolves star player, there was a quick play ran by the USA Stripes team coached by San Antonio Spurs coach Mitch Johnson. No timeout was called and LeBron passed the ball off to Donovan Mitchell, who then swiftly got the ball to De’Aaron Fox, who took the shot with time expiring. The ball went into the hoop and the Stripes team won by a margin of two points. A 42-40 win with the game-winning three by Fox. An important win for the Stripes, who was now 1-0 with a plus-two point margin(one of the tiebreakers in case all three teams finished 1-1 to determine the matchup in the championship game was point differential). The leading scorer for the Stripes in this game was Jaylen Brown, who scored 11 points. LeBron scored eight points and Mitchell had six, with Fox joining Kevin Durant and Kawhi Leonard as veteran players with five points. In spite of 11 points from both Cunningham and Edwards, the USA Stars team had to watch the next game and see if their even 0 point margin would be enough for them to get into the championship game.

Third Matchup Between World Team and USA Stripes Comes Down to the Wire Again, But One Player’s Individual Performance Is Difference Maker In Determining All-Star Champ Game Matchup

The third game of the 2026 NBA All-Star tournament featured the World team facing off against the older veterans of USA Stripes. The game was back-and-forth, with both teams trading leads in a high scoring affair. Both teams had big performers try to fuel them to victory, with the World squad having Victor Wembanyama try to lift them to a win this time around. Being down by seven points with under seven minutes left in the period, the Stripes squad got a scoring boost from a very valuable source in Kawhi Leonard, who had 11 straight points in a two-minute span that gave the old vets the lead. Leonard continued leading the scoring charge in his home arena while the World team looked to stay in the matchup.

In the final two minutes, the lead changed a massive amount of times, but Leonard made a huge and-1 basket that came with a game-tying free throw. Jaylen Brown then made an epic block on Jamal Murray and the transition attempt led to a putback slam dunk by LeBron that gave the Stripes team a valuable lead. However, Wemby drew a foul on LeBron and made both free throws on the other end to tie the score up. With a little over 25 seconds left, the Stripes had a chance to win it all and there was no doubt who was going to take the game-winning shot. Kawhi Leonard pulled up from behind the arc and drilled a clutch three-pointer with a few seconds left on the clock. Following a timeout taken by the World team’s head coach Darko Rajaković, there was still a chance for this game to be forced into overtime. Wembanyama got the ball and shot the game-tying three-pointer, but it went right off the rim and that was the game. The USA Stripes team had defeated the World squad by an epic final score of 48-45 to advance to the All-Star tournament championship matchup. They were fueled by Kawhi Leonard, who scored 31 points in the 12 minutes that he played in. Kawhi went 11 of 13 from the field and made six three-pointers. For context, the most points scored in a single quarter in an NBA regular season game is 37 by former All-Star shooting forward Klay Thompson for the Golden State Warriors on Jan 23, 2015. What Leonard did was amazing, although the defense wasn’t as competitive as it would be in a regular game. Jalen Brunson and Kevin Durant flanked Leonard offensively, with eight and seven points respectively. The World squad suffered another tough defeat and if they wanted to advance to the championship match, they not only needed to win but they needed to defeat the USA Stripes team by three points or more in order to overcome the point differential tiebreaker. Wemby had a valiant effort of 19 points and he got some more help from his teammates in this one. But in the end, it would be an all-American matchup in the NBA All-Star championship game.

All-Star Title Game Features Young Stars Versus Old Stripes, But Ends Up Being a Clear Coronation of One Squad Over The Other In Inglewood

The championship game in the 2026 NBA All-Star tournament occurred between the USA Stars and USA Stripes teams. In a rematch of the second game, which had an epic ending with De’Aaron Fox’s game-winning three helping propel the old Stripes to their first win of the day, there would be no doubt as to who the winner would be from the first few minutes of the game. The young Stars jumped ahead with a 12-1 run early on fueled by baskets from Tyrese Maxey and the lead only grew from there. The proverbial closer in this game was Anthony Edwards, who scored eight straight points in a 15-0 run that pushed the score to a gigantic 33-9 tally in favor of the Stars. In the end, USA Stars won 47-21 and they were the champions of the inaugural USA vs. World All-Star Game format. It was a full team effort for the Stars, who didn’t have any player score in double-digits in the title game.

The MVP of the tournament was Anthony Edwards, who had a combined 32 points in the three 12-minute quarter games that his team played in. Receiving the Kobe Bryant All-Star trophy, Edwards added another piece of hardware to his growing collection of accolades as one of the bright young stars in the NBA. If we are being frank, there are players on each squad that had deserving performances of the MVP in this tournament. For the World squad, Victor Wembanyama scored a combined 33 points in the two games that he participated in and did everything he could offensively and defensively to keep his injured and banged-up All-Star squad in it. The USA Stripes team had its premiere performance come from Kawhi Leonard, who had a combined 37 points and nine rebounds in the trio of games he partook in. As for the whole All-Star weekend in general, there were some bright moments such as Damian Lillard coming back to participate in the Three-Point Contest and win it in thrilling fashion by barely staving off Devin Booker, who blew three chances at making the event-winning shot. Meanwhile, the Shooting Stars competition dazzled in its first appearance in 11 years as celebrity passers such as Anthony Anderson and 2Chainz tried their best to propel different teams of NBA players from the past and present to victory. Team Knicks won the event by making some epic four-point shots barely over Team Cameron(made up of three Duke University basketball studs in Kon Knueppel, Jalen Johnson and Corey Maggette). Unfortunately, the Slam Dunk Contest did not live up to the hype as it had to be fueled by someone not named Mac McClung, who had won the previous three Dunk contests with a thrilling display of slams. But it was won by Keshad Johnson of the Miami Heat after Carter Bryant of the San Antonio Spurs tried to get too cute with the final dunk of the event. Overall, this NBA All-Star Weekend had its ups and downs in its first appearance at the arena of the future in the Intuit Dome, where the fans were into most of the action and the times for each of the events occurred earlier than usual due to NBC’s coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan-Cortina. The NBA All-Star Game has definitely remained ahead of the NFL Pro Bowl Games, which cratered to an all-time low a couple of weeks ago.

Notable Statlines Across Combined Multiple 12-Minute Games At 2026 NBA All-Star Tournament

• Victor Wembanyama(World): 33 pts, 8 reb, 10-13 FG, 4-5 3-Pt FG, 3 Blk
• Kawhi Leonard(USA Stripes): 37 Pts, 9 Reb, 13-24 FG, 7-11 3-Pt FG
• Anthony Edwards(USA Stars): 32 Pts, 9 Reb, 3 Ast, 13-22 FG, 6-15 3 Pt-FG
• LeBron James(USA Stripes): 15 Pts, 7 Reb, 5-11 FG, 4-9 3-Pt FG
• Karl-Anthony Towns(World): 16 Pts, 3 Reb, 5-6 FG, 4-5 3-Pt FG
• Cade Cunningham(USA Stars): 15 Pts, 7 Reb, 7 Ast, 6-13 FG, 1-4 3-Pt FG
• Kevin Durant(USA Stripes): 12 Pts, 5-15 FG, 1-9 3-Pt FG
• Tyrese Maxey(USA Stars): 15 Pts, 5 Reb, 3 Ast, 7-15 FG, 1-9 3-Pt FG
• Pascal Siakam(World): 10 Pts, 4 Reb, 5-7 FG
• Jaylen Brown(USA Stripes): 15 Pts, 5 Reb, 7-22 FG, 1-11 3-Pt FG
• Jalen Duren(USA Stars): 15 Pts, 11 Reb, 7-11 FG