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Authored by - February 21, 2006 - 1:12 pm

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February 21, 2006 By Scott Shniderman The 55th annual NBA All-Star Weekend kicked off from Houston on Friday with the NBA T-Mobile Rookie-Sophomore game with the Sophomores defeating the Rookies 106-96. Andre Iguodala, game MVP, stole the show with 30 points including four three pointers and a plethora of electrifying dunks. Ben Gordon added 17, while Delonte West chipped in 15 for the Sophomores. Charlie Villanueva and Luther Head led the rookies with 18 points each. Saturday night’s festivities started out with the Radio Shack Shooting Stars competition. The defending champion Phoenix triumvirate couldn’t successfully defend their title, as neither The Matrix nor Thunder Dan could knock down the half court shot. Kobe Bryant, Lisa Leslie and Magic Johnson were the biggest stars involved, but as Reggie Miller liked to mention (about 100 times), “all that glitters not gold.” The Los Angeles group finished second. Houston had a promising entry with McGrady, Clyde Drexler and Sheryl Swoopes, but they fell short as well. San Antonio’s group of Tony Parker, Steve Kerr and Kendra Wenker set an all time record with 25.1 seconds to take home the title. The best part about San Antonio winning the competition was getting additional courtside cut away shots of Eva Longoria. Good stuff. Next up was the Play Station Skills Challenge. Steve Nash set an all time record of 25.4 seconds last year and was the heavy favorite coming into the night. Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the contest, Mr. MVP forgot how to hit a jump shot as he missed so many shots in the jumper portion of the contest the ball rack ran out of balls and the judges told him to just finish off the competition without finishing that requirement. Young pup Chris Paul, seemed to be only going half speed as he finished in 42 seconds. If only the lock ROY had run full speed we could have seen him in the finals. Not to worry, there were two pretty well known players in the finals, LeBron James and Dwayne Wade. BronBron seemed to do very well, but missed one of his chest passes and that was all D-Wade needed to find a way to win. Wade hit every pass and every shot in the Skills Challenge to win it in a speedy 39 seconds. Kind of odd to mention D-Wade as the best skills player in the NBA but that’s what he was on Saturday night. The three-point shootout was next as Quentin Richardson was back to defend his title. Well, his night went just like the Knicks season so far, awful, as he finished dead last in the first round. Jason Terry almost got it done to move onto the second round, but his 13 points were one shot short. Chauncey Billups, who many in NBA circles are touting as a potential MVP candidate also came up a bit short in the first round. Ray Allen, probably the odds on favorite coming into the contest, started out hot hitting the most shots in the first round with 19 points. Gilbert Arenas, who was a last second replacement for Raja Bell, started out slow in the first round, but managed enough towards the end of the round to move onto the second round with 14 points. Joining Ray Ray and Gil in the final round was Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk The German edged out Arenas and Allen in the very anti-climactic 3-point shootout. Did anyone watching even realize that Dirk’s 18 point second round was the final round? I remember when Larry Legend was knocking down 3s and the whole arena was waiting on his every shot. Hakim Warrick started out the Sprite Rising Stars Slam Dunk with a nice up and under reverse jam. Went up with one hand and came under and reversed with two hands for 44 points from the judges. Fresh off his Rookie-Soph game MVP, baby AI started out with a sick lob bounce pass to himself and a nice windmill dunk for 45 points. Nate Robinson was third and came strong out of the gate with a bounce lob to himself and then went with a 360 dunk. Wow, exciting dunk to start it out for Little Nate. 49 points. The score was a little high, but the little guy gets a little bonus from the judges. Last up was the defending champ, Josh Smith. He decided to mark the line two feet BEYOND the free throw line. Barkley said it was impossible. J-Smoove then decided to just dunk from the free throw line instead. No one really understood what the tape was for. Confusing. It was a nice dunk, but after the crowd got excited for a dunk from 17 feet out, the “normal” 15 foot away dunk didn’t wow anyone. 41 points. Ho hum. Hakim then used a player in the chair tossing the ball up to him. It was a nice dunk, but it had been done before and he missed the first try, so he only got a 42. Iggy then cleared out the area behind the hoop to get ready for his feed from his teammate Allen Iverson. Iverson actually passed it off the back of the backboard, where Iguodala grabbed the ball on the baseline and had to come in under the backboard and throw it down. Not only did Andre have to grab the ball and swoop in from the baseline to throw it down, he actually had to consciously worry about hitting his head on the underside of the backboard! Sick dunk, something no one has ever seen. Perfect 50! The crowd was still buzzing from AI2, when Nate Robinson went in for his next dunk, but it was nothing special. It had a nice lob with scissor kick and he got a 43, but it was enough to move onto the second round paired with his nice first dunk. Josh Smith had no chance to move on, so he was a bit distraught trying to put down his next dunk. He came in with a nice leaner, but it wasn’t enough. So it was Iguodala and Nate Robinson who moved onto the Finals. N-Rob tried to come in the finals with an off the backboard through the leg dunk, tough to do when you are 5-9. It took him a lot of tries, but he finally threw it down and pulled off a 44. The crowd was ready for Iggy and he didn’t disappoint. Andre tried a lob to himself to go behind his back and threw it down on his second shot, perfect 50! Second round, Nate brought out the original small dunker Spud Webb to throw down a real nice high flying dunk. Fitty! There was now drama for AI2’s final dunk. Iguodala missed his first three attempts, so Andre needed to come up with something nice to bring home the trophy. He went between his legs and then reverse jammed. 44 and we were tied. Much to Kenny Smith’s delight, there was a Dunk Off for the first time ever in the history of the Dunk Competition. For all you conspiracy theorists, Kenny the Jet might have wanted the Dunk Off a little too much as he, as well as others, actually changed his vote within seconds to make sure the Dunk Off actually happened. In the Dunk Off finale, Robinson pretty much guaranteed a rule change for next year’s Dunk contest, no unlimited attempts! 14 tries later, Nate got off a through the legs lob off the backboard, to throw it down. Too many missed dunks made it a bit anti climactic, but Nate Robinson somehow pulled off a 47. Everyone wanted to see what Iggy could do, and he tried a through the legs dunk and got robbed with only a 46. Everyone in the house thought Iguodala should have won, but somehow Nate took home the crown. I think there were actually people in the crowd booing. Weird ending to a weird night. The 55th All Star Sunday started out with Destiny’s Child singing the national anthem and some cool introductions of the players, as the East and West teams had some nice choreography going. The game started with the West making an obvious push for T-Mac to get the MVP award as they fed him early and often for 17 points at half time. A funny intentional free throw miss off the backboard lob to himself attempt by Shaquille O’Neal provided some comedy. I guess The Diesel didn’t know you had to hit the rim on a shot before you could go into the lane. Other first half notables were Lebron James for 12 points in 13 minutes and a nice dunk on a lob from C-Bosh to Vinsanity. The West jumped out to a 17 point halftime lead, which led Charles Barkley to proclaim the game over. Well, the East had something to say about that as they went on a 10-0 run in the middle of the third, including 13 third quarter points for LBJ. The East forged a tie at 97, coming back from a 21 point deficit, at 11 minutes left in the game. The 4 Pistons players had some major P.T. in the fourth as the West tried to counter with The Matrix, Ray Allen, Parker, Garnett and Dirk The German. This is where the game got interesting, as the East, behind a 26-11 run and the strong play from the Pistons foursome, who scored the first 11 points of the fourth quarter, took the lead in the game in the fourth quarter. LBJ had a crazy tip dunk off an AI miss to put the East up 10 with just over three minutes to go in the game. The West clawed back and it was a two point East lead with 50 seconds to go. James forced up a three that was off the mark and the West had a chance again. Just over half a minute to go and it was West ball, down two. Kobe had a ridiculous between the legs backwards dribble and a quick bucket to force the 2 for 1. The East came back with an Iverson jumper that fell just short, but D-Wade was there for the put back to put the East up two again with 16 seconds to go in the game. A McGrady miss from 21 feet sealed the huge comeback for the East as the East finished with a 122-120 victory. T-Mac’s game high 36 were not enough to get the West a win. King James finished with 29 points, 6 rebounds and 2 assists and the first of many future All-Star game MVPs. Other notable stat lines included Dwayne Wade’s 20 point, 4 point, 3 assist outing and Tim Duncan’s 15 points and 10 rebounds. A great and exciting way to end an all-around successful NBA All-Star Weekend from Houston. Much of the crowd and players were already thinking about NBA All-Star 2007 from Las Vegas. Vegas Baby, Vegas. Scott can be reached at scottx2000@yahoo.com with any comments or questions.