All-Star Saturday is something I always look forward to, mostly because of the Dunk Contest and 3-Point Shootout.
Shooting Stars Competition
San Antonio’s David Robinson, Tim Duncan, and Beckey Hammon were named the new champions of the Shooting Stars Competition. I thought this team was the least likely to be victorious for the simple fact that they had two 7 footers on their team.
I was shocked to see that the Detroit team of Chauncey Billups, Swin Cash, and Bill Lambier didn’t repeat. I had them repeating, but they were just off last night.
Skills Challenge
The Skills Challenge is something I think should be replaced with something like horse or one on one. Seeing these guys go through the course half speed just isn’t exciting to me.
Utah’s Deron Williams won the skills challenge beating Chris Paul, Jason Kidd, and Dwayne Wade. Williams set a new record, completing the course in 25.5 seconds, beating New Orleans Chris Paul in the final round.
3-Point Shootout
I was rooting for Cleveland’s Daniel Gibson to come away with the upset on this one. Gibson hit 11 3-pointers in the Rookie-Sophomore game Friday Night, but came up short on Saturday.
The defending champion, Jason Kapono was once again victorious. Kapono tied a 22 year old record set by Craig Hodges, shooting a 25 in the final round. Kapono once again proved that it’s okay to be one dimensional as long as you can shoot.
Was it just me, or was Dirk and Peja surprisingly off this game? Dirk shot an air-ball, and Peja hit the side of the backboard.
The Dunk Contest
Apparently, it is okay to sleep on Jamario Moon. His first dunk was kind of nice though. Not sure why he had Kapono throwing him the pass on his second dunk.
I was very disappointed in Rudy Gay’s performance. I thought he was going to do something special last night. Magic Johnson made a good point about Gay. He said he’s a great in game dunker, but not so special in a Dunk Contest.
Gerald Green’s Birthday Cake dunk was innovative and creative. At first, I wasn’t sure that he actually blew the candle out, but after viewing the replay, he somehow pulled it off. Green should have got more props from dunking without shoes on. Just running on hardwood makes my feet hurt.
The Birthday Cake
Dwight Howard had an amazing run of Dunks last night, and won the contest hands down. That was the best run of dunks since Vince Carter’s performance in Oakland. He did dunks no one has ever seen before, and what made it even more spectacular was a guy that big being so agile. His Superman Dunk was one of the best dunks I have ever seen. It almost looked unreal.
Superman
