Irving plays like star he hopes to be in East's All-Star Game win

And so the stars who won this night were those who have not been winning the games that matter this season. "Regardless of whether I won MVP of this game or

Ian Thomsen | Feb 17, 2014

Irving plays like star he hopes to be in East's All-Star Game win /

Kyrie Irving rallied the East to stop the conference's three-game losing skid in the All-Star Game. — Kyrie Irving rallied the East to stop the conference's three-game losing skid in the All-Star Game :: Christian Petersen/Getty Images

And so the stars who won this night were those who have not been winning the games that matter this season. "Regardless of whether I won MVP of this game or not," Irving said, "my focus level is going to remain the same after the All-Star break, and that's trying to get as many wins as possible." The winner he was Sunday among the greatest of all players is the same player that Irving wants to be Tuesday at Philadelphia, when he's playing against the woeful 76ers. Ultimately, he wants the kinds of plays he made here to matter when it counts.

Published Feb 17, 2014

IAN THOMSEN

Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated Sports Illustrated Senior Writer Ian Thomsen, who joined the magazine in 1998, is one of SI's top basketball scribes. Along with writing columns and features for SI, Thomsen is a frequent contributor to SI.com. Before joining SI, Thomsen spent six years in Europe as the sports columnist for the International Herald Tribune, the world's largest international English-language daily. While at the paper Thomsen wrote about an array of sports for a global audience, including the major world and European soccer tournaments, the 1995 Rugby World Cup, Olympic Games, Ryder Cups, Grand Slam tennis events, Grand Prix auto races and, very rarely, cricket. Thomsen, who graduated from Northwestern with a journalism degree in 1983, was a feature writer for The National Sports Daily during its short, expensive run of 1990-91. His first job was with The Boston Globe, where he covered Doug Flutie's Boston College Eagles and all three of the Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals of the 1980s. Thomsen was a feature writer at SI before taking on the NBA beat fulltime in 2000. With Luis Fernando Llosa and Melissa Segura, Thomsen covered the 2001 scandal of overaged Little League pitcher Danny Almonte and wrote the first SI cover story on Kobe Bryant in 1998. Thomsen lives with his wife and two children near Boston.