{"id":26170,"date":"2024-02-17T11:26:40","date_gmt":"2024-02-17T08:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/26170\/pacers-mathurin-wins-rising-stars\/"},"modified":"2024-02-17T11:26:42","modified_gmt":"2024-02-17T08:26:42","slug":"pacers-mathurin-wins-rising-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/?p=26170","title":{"rendered":"Pacers&#8217; Mathurin wins Rising Stars MVP on All-Star Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pacers&#8217; Mathurin wins Rising Stars MVP on All-Star Weekend\u060c<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"article-meta\">\n<ul class=\"authors\">\n<li class=\"mugshot-shown\">\n<div class=\"author-img\"><\/div>\n<p>Andrew Lopez, ESPN<span class=\"timestamp \">February 17, 2024, 04:39<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>INDIANAPOLIS \u2013 There would be no Victor Wembanyama-Chet Holmgren showdown thanks to Mac McClung and several members of the G League Ignite team.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, Bennedict Mathurin got the chance to be his hometown hero as the Indiana Pacers guard led Team Jalen to victory in Friday night&#39;s NBA Rising Stars game.<\/p>\n<p>Mathurin scored 18 points and hit the game-winning shot in the semifinal against Team Tamika before contributing in a balanced effort against Team Detlef in the final.<\/p>\n<p>For his efforts, Mathurin was named the game&#39;s MVP and drew numerous MVP chants from the Gainbridge Fieldhouse crowd throughout the games.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was fun. It was fun to see, to receive these chants,&#8221; Mathurin said.  &#8220;The Rising Stars Game, I feel like I haven&#39;t really felt that feeling in the NBA. One day I want to be MVP, so it was awesome to get that feeling pretty early in my career.&#8221;<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline editorial float-r\" data-behavior=\"article_related\">\n<h2 class=\"editorial-title\">Editor&#39;s Choice<\/h2>\n<p>2 Related<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Under the new Rising Stars format launching in 2023, rookies, sophomores and select G Leaguers are divided into four teams.  Teams play semi-final matches against each other with a target score of 40 before the final moves to 25.<\/p>\n<p>In the final, a rested Jalen team jumped out to an early 10-4 lead and controlled the game from there, finding a quick finish with back-to-back 3-pointers from New Orleans Pelicans guard Jordan Hawkins and from Oklahoma City forward Jalen Williams.  <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/tag\/win\/\"   title=\"win\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">win<\/a> 26-13.<\/p>\n<p>This is the second Rising Stars victory for Mathurin;  he was part of the Pau team which won the event in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Mathurin, who had teammates Tyrese Haliburton, Myles Turner and Obi Toppin sitting on the court, had a chance to win the semifinal with two free throws in the first game, but the 82.5 percent free throw shooter missed both.<\/p>\n<p>On the next descent, he made sure to make up for it with a reversal for the win.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI saw a few shots go in and I was like, that\u2019s it,\u201d Mathurin said of what motivated him in the first game.  &#8220;If I&#39;m completely honest, it&#39;s my city too. I had to make sure I brought it home. So that was the main thing for me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Wembanyama and Team Pau were unable to overcome Team Detlef in their semi-final, despite 11 points, 7 rebounds and 2 blocks from the Spurs rookie.  Team Detlef led by 12, but the Gasol-led team cut the lead to three late on.  In the end, G League Ignite forward Matas Buzelis, eligible for the 2024 NBA Draft, nailed a jumper to give his team the victory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was fun,\u201d Buzelis said.  &#8220;It was good to compete with the best guys in the world and show my talent. I&#39;m excited for the future.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On the game-winning shot, Buzelis knocked down an offensive rebound from Aldones Williams \u2013 who is under a two-way contract with the Miami Heat \u2013 after missing a long 3-point attempt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI got the rebound and worked on my post game, my post fade,\u201d Buzelis said.  &#8220;I feel like I can make that shot every time. So I took it and it went in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Despite the defeat, the weekend is not over for Wembanyama, who will take part in the Skills Challenge on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I mean, it was a little weird because at the same time, I want to win and I hate to lose, but at the same time, I have so much going on and I&#39;m happy to have one thing taken away from the list this weekend.&#8221; Wembanyama said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pacers&#8217; Mathurin wins Rising Stars MVP on All-Star Weekend\u060c Andrew Lopez, ESPNFebruary 17, 2024, 04:39 INDIANAPOLIS \u2013 There would be no Victor Wembanyama-Chet Holmgren showdown thanks to Mac McClung and several members of the G League Ignite team. Instead, Bennedict Mathurin got the chance to be his hometown hero as the Indiana Pacers guard led [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26171,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3703,10832,2564,4501,7693,1287,2782,1536],"class_list":["post-26170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","tag-allstar","tag-mathurin","tag-mvp","tag-pacers","tag-rising","tag-stars","tag-weekend","tag-wins"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26172,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26170\/revisions\/26172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}