Team Philly Beats LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, and Chris Paul in Battle of I-95

If Madison Square Garden is the world’s most famous basketball arena, then the Palestra in Philadelphia isn’t far behind. On Sunday night it was the host of another game between NBA stars during the NBA lockout. These games generate a lot of buzz, and over shadow the lack of progress in the NBA lockout. The game was tab as the battle of I-95. The two teams were Team Philly and Melo Stars of Baltimore. Team Philly 131 to 122. The idea of this game came about, when Kevin Durant (Baltimore) and Hakim Warrick (Philadelphia) wanted to decide what city was better.

Melo Stars consisted of Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, and Chris Paul. Kevin Durant was suppose to play, but he was not there. NBA players on Team Philly were Tyreke Evans, Jason Thompson, Warrick, Kyle Lowry, Lou Williams and Warrick.

Lowry of the Houston Rockets and Williams of the Philadelphia 76ers led the way for Team Philly. Lowry scored 34 points, and Williams added 31 points. Evans had 18 points and 18 rebounds, and Warrick added 19 points and 12 rebounds.

The superstar trio of Anthony, James, and Paul played the whole game. James led the way with 43 points and 23 rebounds. Anthony finished with 31 points and 17 rebounds. Paul, did not play that well only scoring 6 points.

James is a part of the so called big three in Miami with Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade. This year they came up small in the NBA finals, despite having 3 top players in the game, and lost to a team with only 1. Same thing happen in this game James, Anthony, and Paul are all top 10 players in the game, but they still lost, poor LeBron.

Warrick gave his thoughts about the win afterwards “After beating that team, I mean we’ve got to be the champs. “We’re taking on all challengers, but they’ve got to come through Philly. So whoever’s next, they’ve come to through us.”

I really love these  games; where else can fans get this up close to the players? I think the players really enjoyed them too, and it keeps them in shape and out of trouble. What was also great about this game was in raised money for charity.

And finally Anthony gave his thoughts about the lockout. “My main thing, we just got to stick together, as players we’re sticking together, and in the meantime keep doing stuff like this, keep having basketball games, keep playing, keep giving fans what they want. It’s not everything that they want, because they want a season, but hey, it’s something.”

Tags: Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Lebron James