For an exhibition game, the NBA All-Star Game held countless headlines. There was Kobe’s broken nose, LeBron’s last-second inbound instead of last-second shot, Kevin Durant’s MVP award, the halftime show that just wouldn’t end and, in the end, a game that actually had viewers on the edge of their seats for the last few minutes.

It was in those last few minutes of play where the atmosphere clearly shifted. The game was suddenly a game, not just an exhibition. LeBron James was taking shots that would get a guy benched in any regular season game — and hitting them. And Kevin Durant, who would win the game’s MVP, was right on his tail.

But with 1.1 seconds left to play and the West up 152-149, it’s still hard to believe that it was LeBron who inbounded the ball for the trailing East team. In that situation, the NBA world would have rather seen a LeBron half-court heave with three guys in his face than a Dwayne Wade wide-open look. This could’ve easily been LeBron’s game for the taking. He had his shot and instead opted to inbound.

Having said that, this is the kind of All-Star Game fans like to see. A game that is all fun for the first 43 minutes and all business (they decided to play defense) in the last five. The West tallied an All-Star record 88 points in the first half. We saw highlight dunks on every other play, many of which could have single-handedly won the dunk contest the night before. The perfect combination of high-flying action and anxiety toward the end contributed to a very watchable event, despite its lackluster final moments.

And then there was Kobe Bryant, who needed only 19 points to oust Michael Jordan’s record of 262 career All-Star points. Bryant would finish with 27 points and broke the record on a fast-break dunk. The most significant Kobe moment, however, came when Wade committed a hard foul on him and drew blood while breaking his nose. Wade would go on to say, “Kobe fouled me two times in a row, so he’s got one up on me,” while he probably should have said something like, “I may have crossed the line there and wasn’t trying to hurt Kobe.”

But by being overly aggressive during the All-Star Game, Wade has set the stage for Sunday when Miami heads into the Staples Center to take on the Lakers and a very unforgetting Kobe Bryant in what already promised to be a great game anyway.

Still, the All-Star Game itself was overshadowed by other external headlines, the biggest being Dwight Howard, both physically and literally. The 6-foot-11-inch center was the hometown hero in Orlando Sunday night, but Magic fans were left wondering whether this was Howard’s last tribute to the team that drafted him. With the trade deadline approaching and Howard’s contract with the Magic in its last few months, fans can only speculate whether the most physically dominant player in the NBA will still be with them at season’s end.

With highlights and headlines galore, the 2012 All-Star Game, for the first time in recent memory, actually outshined All-Star Saturday Night. The game’s top stars came together to put on a show for a fanbase well-deserving of a quality midseason classic.