Miami Heat Rising Stars
Following the celebrity game on Friday night was the Rising Stars Challenge game that pits the best first and second-year American players against the best first and second-year players born around the world. To bury the lead, team USA was victorious and it wasn’t even that close based on the 20 point final margin.
The reason that this game is important to us right now though is the as mentioned Miami Heat presence. Although both Heat rookies Kendrick Nunn and Tyler Herro were selected to participate in the game for the USA side, only Kendrick Nunn played real minutes due to Herro’s lingering injury that we will touch on here at AUCH in the coming days.
In any event, Nunn played 20 minutes in the game for the USA team, a number of minutes identically and evenly distributed to all 10 players on the USA side who played. In his 20 minutes, Nunn dropped 16 points on 7-11 from the floor and 2-4 from three, with a rebound, an assist, and two steals as well.
He played well around the talented young USA roster that included a starting lineup of Jaren Jackson Jr. of the Memphis Grizzlies, fellow Rookie of the Year award contender Zion Williamson of the New Orleans Pelicans, All-Star Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks, and another fellow Rookie of the Year award contender in Ja Morant of the Memphis Grizzlies. This is no surprise though considering how well he has seamlessly stepped into his role with the Miami Heat to produce at a high level. Hopefully, this performance will carry over into the second half of the season as he returns to South Beach, helping him to come out of a slump he was in to close the first half.