NBA Rising Stars Challenge 2017 final score: Jamal Murray wins MVP as Team World coasts to a win

There’s really only one purpose for the Rising Stars Challenge. It’s not scoring — with nearly 300 combined points, that’s easy. It’s not winning — who cares. It’s not winning MVP — name the Rising Stars Challenge MVP last year, or the year before. You can’t, can you? It’s not playing defense — c’mon, man, I’ve played YMCA games that were more competitive than this.

No, the purpose of the Rising Stars Challenge is to cook someone. For Joel Embiid, who got expressed permission from the NBA to tweet from the bench during the game since he was sitting out due to injury, that’s the key.

And according to Embiid, only one person did it.

Before we get too far away from the game, here’s the information you need. Team World beat Team USA 150-141 on Friday, giving Team World a 2-1 lead in the series since the format switched over to World vs. USA. Denver’s Jamal Murray won MVP, scoring 36 points on 13-of-19 shooting. (Surprise! He’s Canadian, if you didn’t realize.)

Now, to the important part: the cooking. Here’s the first one.

And part two.

Neither of them were Kyrie Irving’s crossover against Brandon Knight in the Rising Stars Challenge a few years ago. We all still remember that. But when the only purpose is to cook, then you can’t complain when D’Angelo Russell is out here trying to cook.

The rest of the game was not nearly as interesting. For example, this happened.

That is the least exciting thing that could possibly be said about an NBA game.

That said, Kaminsky did lead Team USA in scoring with 33 points, hitting nine threes. Karl-Anthony Towns provided 24 points and 11 rebounds, the only double-double for his team. For Team World, Nikola Jokic nearly recorded a triple-double with 12 points, 11 rebounds, and eight assists. I mean, of course.

Jonathon Simmons was responsible for one of the best highlights with this block.

Here’s the full box score. Congrats to Jamal Murray!