| Vegas Baby, Vegas Authored by Scott Shniderman - February 19, 2007 - 5:23 pm
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By Scott Shniderman
The NBA All-Star Weekend kicked into full gear on Saturday night with the Haier Shooting Stars, PlayStation Skills Challenge, Barkley vs. Bavetta Charity Race, Foot Locker Three Point Shootout and Sprite Slam Dunk. Let’s get right into the action.
The Chicago squad started out the NBA Saturday night festivities with a triumvirate of Ben “Air” Gordon, Candace “You, Me and” Dupree and Scottie Pippen in the Haier Shooting Stars Competition. Pip has made some waves this week by stating he wants to return to the Association for the playoff run. 41 years old doesn’t seem like the right age for a return to play NBA playoff basketball, but Pip looked in pretty good shape during this competition. We’ll see how Scottie P gets in shape over the next few weeks and if he
really has any gas left in the tank. WNBA-er Dupree finally sank her half court shot and the Chicago Crew finished in a first round best 48.8 seconds. Chicago rocked the Finals with a time of 47 seconds, but Gordon actually shot out of turn overruling a shot that Dupree took from the corner that was going to go in and was disqualified.
Los Angeles’ threesome consisted of “Smush” (one of the best nicknames in the NBA) Parker, Temeka Johnson and Michael Cooper, who all wanted to bring the tinsel back to tinseltown. Coop, with his 1980s mustache still in tact, missed about 10 shots in a row at the 3 point line putting the LA posse behind the 8 ball. When you throw in the fact that there was a clock malfunction, which delayed the competition and stopped their momentum, the LA crew was cooked.
San Antonio, the defending champs, went last. Tony Parker, Kendra Wecker and Ice Man George Gervin wanted to repeat. Gervin took too long to knock down his 3, but there were several tremendous cutaways to the soon to be Mrs. Tony Parker, Eva Longoria. Nice. San Antonio couldn’t hit shots fast enough and didn’t make it to the final round.
D-Town had its group ready to take this competition by storm. Mr. Big Shot--Chauncey Billups, Swin Cash and original Bad Boy Bill Laimbeer laced them up for Detroit. Bill Laimbeer looked about 100 years old and was in prime ‘80s form arguing with the refs when there was yet another clock malfunction a mere few minutes after the original problem with LA’s team. They ended up getting the job done in 66 seconds and moved onto the second and final round against Chicago. Things broke right for Detroit in the Finals and their time of 50.5 seconds put the pressure on Chicago to top it. In a controversial ending, Chicago ended up getting disqualified and the Detroit team took home the Shooting Stars Trophy.
The Skills competition was next and the players involved in this group would make for an amazing dunk competition. Arguably the three best overall players and best young pup in the NBA took part: LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul. Wow. The first shameless plug of the night occurred as LeBron tied his brand new shoes on a pedestal--literally--before the contest started for the benefit of all the TNT viewers. Almost a new low, even for the leader of the LeBrons. The King was not good enough to advance after finishing with a non-qualifying time of 35.4 seconds. CP3 went next. Paul didn’t seem to be going full speed in this round, finishing with a time of 39.6 seconds. His time also didn’t make the cut and last year’s ROY was out. Kobe seemed to lollygag a bit as well, but hit every pass on his first try, so he finished with the best time to this point of the competition at 29.8 seconds. D-Wade, the defending champ, was ready to defend his NBA title and his Skills competition title this year and moved on with 31.3 seconds. So it was Kobe and D-Wade in the Finals. Not the NBA Finals, but the Skills Challenge Finals. It would have to do for February. Wade rocked the final run through with a time of 26.4. You could see he really wanted to win back-to-back. Kobe had tons of trouble with his chest pass and missed four passes in a row. D-Wade took home the Skills championship for the second year in a row.
Perhaps the most humorous part of the evening was the three and half court length race between the 67 year old referee Dick Bavetta and the 44 year old Round Mound of Rebound, Charles Barkley. True must-see TV. Charles looked more nervous than he was to start the 1993 Finals. Chuck kept trying for a false start, but Ernie Johnson would have nothing of it and made sure it was a clean start. Barkley looked pretty nimble and actually ended up showboating by running backwards over the finish line with a wipeout to boot. The Chuckster ended up beating Bavetta after being the prohibitive underdog going into the race.
The 3 point contest was next and there were some repeat as well as new entrants this year. Jason “The Jet” Terry didn’t have what it took as his 10 points were the worst of any of the contestants in the first round. Damon Jones started out hot hitting four of his first five shots, but couldn’t keep it up and was eliminated. Mike Miller just missed the cut with an 18 in the first round. Jason Kapono started out with a very solid 19 to start the competition, which was just good enough to advance to the finals with the two prohibitive favorites, Hibachi--Gilbert Arenas and Dirk Nowitzki. Kapono ended the Shoot Out red hot, and tied the final round mark with a very Jack Bauer-like 24. Agent Zero and The Big German had their work cut out for them. Nowitzki couldn’t seem to catch a roll as he floundered to a terrible score of 10. It became apparent that there wouldn’t be a repeat champ in the 3 point contest. Gilly the Kid started out slow, missing his entire first rack except the money ball. Arenas was very un-hibiachi like the rest of the way and finished with an uninspiring 14. Kapono and his final round record-tying 24 won the title. The Heat ended up taking home titles in the Skills and 3 point competition in Vegas 2007.
For the Sprite Slam Dunk, the judges were the best of the best in the history of the dunk competition. MJ, Dr. J, Vinsanity, Kobe and ‘Nique. This fantastic fivesome definitely had the credentials to grade this year’s best leapers. Tyrus Thomas, Bulls rookie who earlier in the week said he only wanted to enter the competition because he was “just into the free money”, went first and had trouble coordinating with his teammate Ben Gordon on some alley oops. TT ended up going between the legs backwards off the backboard. The mediocre dunk combined with his ill-timed comments earned him a very uninspiring 37. Tyrus’s second dunk actually ripped the net off the rim, while he jumped right over Ben Gordon. Pretty cool, but not good enough. Thomas was out. Gerald Green brought the house down with an assist from teammate Paul Pierce feeding it to him off the side of the backboard, flying in from the side and dunk you very much! 48 on his first slam. G-squared answered the question of “how can he top that” in spectacular fashion. Pierce brought out a cardboard cutout of last year’s champ Robinson for Green to dunk over, but then asked Nate if he would step in as the real thing. Robinson was a great sport and agreed. Then Green started to pump his shoes and showed the crowd he was wearing a Celts #7 retro jersey in a tribute to original Reebok pump spokesman and former Celtic, Dee Brown. While he actually received one point lower than his first dunk on his second jam, he still scored enough to advance to the next round with a 95 total. On his first dunk, D-Howard took it STONG down the lane, double pump tomahawk for his first slam and takes home a 43. On his second dunk, Howard actually put a sticker of himself on the backboard with his left hand and threw it down with his right. Then he measured how high the sticker was on the glass, 12 and a half feet! Great originality. 47 on his second dunk, but it was not enough to advance. There was a general consensus among the broadcasters that Howard got robbed and should have moved onto the final round. I can’t say that I disagreed. The sticker of a smiling Howard was really funny stuff. Little Big Man Nate Robinson started off nice with a alley oop to himself, scissor kick, pow. Great slam and thankfully Robinson got his first dunk down netting a 45. No one wanted to remember the seventeen missed dunk fiasco of last year with Nate. N-Rob attempts a nice statue of liberty taking the ball from the David Lee at its apex and throws down another 45 point dunk. Enough to move on to the Finals!
First dunk of the final round for Robinson was a very unimpressive bounce pass to himself scoring him a 39. You would have thought that the defending champ would have had something better up his sleeve. The crowd was buzzing ready for Green’s next attempt. Pierce threw an alley oop over the glass from behind the backboard and Green got it down, but it was nothing special. 40 points for Green’s dunk. It basically came down to a one dunk final. There are rumors that Robinson wanted to use two Vegas showgirls dealing blackjack at a table as a prop and jump over them on final slam, but was denied on his request. That would have been cool to see. As an alternate option, N-Rob tried to alley oop it off the backboard and throw down a 360 and it didn’t work until his tenth and very last try. While it was an impressive dunk, the fact that it took ten tries was too much for the judges to overlook and Robinson pulled a 41 on his second dunk. G-Green pulled out a Las Vegas All Star Table as a dunk prop, jumped over it and threw down a windmill jam on it for the exclamation mark. He got a perfect 50 and took home the Sprite Slam Dunk trophy.
The Main Event, the 56th annual All-Star Game, began with a pretty cheesy Wayne Newton medley of cover tunes introducing the players from each squad. After the cheese appetizer, the main course was set to begin. Most of the announcers said that the teams don’t really try until the fourth quarter, but there were some dynamic plays and spectacular dunks right away in this game. An unbelievable up and under reverse dunk by Kobe Bryant about eight minutes in was the first “oh wow” play on the night. A Bron Bron to D-Wade alley oop on the next possession going the other way really got the crowd and the rest of the players amped. The West jumped out 39-31 at the end of the first quarter. The second quarter’s first play to amaze was a Billups to Carter pass off the glass for a jam. Midway through the quarter Shaq missed a dunk, but ended up getting it right back to come correct with the jam on his second try. In a strange twist to end the play, he mock-kissed T-Mac on his way back down the court. Good thing John Amaechi and Tim Hardaway weren’t playing in the game tonight. Perhaps the most interesting technology that TNT employed in its broadcast was their “Inside Trax” feature when they mike up the players. Hearing T-Mac bust out an impromptu version of “Viva Las Vegas” while sitting on the bench with Yao Ming was pretty cool, but I don’t think he will be trying out for American Idol any time soon. Kobe Bryant had another strong move to the rim as he flew through the lane for another powerful tomahawk jam. At the end of the first half, the score the West led 79-59. King James topped the East with 16 points and Kobe Bryant led all scorers with 17 points at halftime.
The game had become a snoozer midway through the 3rd quarter. As for the obligatory celebrity crowd shots, TNT catered to our celeb-sighting infatuation showing that Jay Z and Beyonce, Adam Sandler, Chris Tucker, Diddy, The Governator, Mary J. Blige, Eva Longoria and Prince were all in the house tonight. UNLV alumnus and Vegas off-season resident Shawn Marion had some very nice dunks to give some of his fans a good show in the 3rd to put the West ahead by 31. Ouch. It was 119-91 at the end of the 3rd quarter and the only drama left in this one was who would win the MVP. Amare stepped it up and had 23 points and 6 rebounds through 3 quarters, while Kobe had 19 points, 5 assists and 5 steals. Kobe started to take every shot in sight during the 4th as his push for the game’s MVP was hardly covert. Ok, so a funny highlight showed Elvis impersonators putting on a dunk show off trampolines during a 4th quarter timeout and Gilbert decided to join the dunk off line. Classic Gilbert, absolutely classic. A solid tip dunk by ‘Melo, followed by an exciting Amare alley oop with a little under two minutes left provided two additional fun fourth quarter highlights. Kobe predictably put an exclamation point on the night with a tremendous reverse dunk to finish with 31 points, as the West ended up winning 153-132. The all-time All-Star Game assists and field goals record were both set tonight by the West with 52 dimes and 69 shots made. Kobe’s final stat line: 31 points, 6 rebounds, 6 steals and 6 assists and 1 MVP award. Amare Stoudemire finished with 29 points and 9 rebounds and was the only other player who received serious consideration for the MVP. James led the East with 28 points, while chipping in 6 rebounds and 6 assists. As for our Washington Wizards, it was a tough night. East head coach Eddie Jordan took the L, Arenas finished with only 8 points and Tough Juice Caron Butler had a very tough rookie All-Star Game going 0 for 6 and finished as the only All-Star without a point. Ouch. If Showgirls and gambling mixed with the NBA wasn’t your thing, start collecting your Mardi Gras beads now as you have The Big Easy to look forward to in 2008. Next year’s NBA party weekend is going to be held in another party town, New Orleans. That’s it from the NBA All-Star Game 2007 in Las Vegas and with the tough Saturday and Sunday that all of the Wizards participants had out in Sin City, they have to hope that the old catch phrase rings true: what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
Scott can be reached directly at scottx2000@yahoo.com with any comments, questions, or musings.
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