News from February 13. TRADE: Dallas traded Josh Howard, Drew Gooden, Quinton Ross, and James Singleton to Washington for Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood, DeShawn Stevenson, and cash. All-Star Saturday Night results HORSE (when player makes a shot, next player gets a letter if misses duplicating the shot) Winner: Kevin Durant (OKC) HOR 2nd place: Rajon Rondo (Bos) HORSE 3rd place: Omri Casspi (Sac) HORSE [first eliminated] Due to the event running long, a 3-point shootout between Durant and Rondo was used to determine the winner - though that took some time too as both players hit a lot of 3s - and each miss resulted in a letter with Rondo missing 2 3-pointers for his 'S' and 'E' and Durant missing 1 for his 'R'. Shooting Stars (must make shot from 6 spots on court in shortest time) 1st round (top 2 advance) LA (Pau Gasol, Brent Barry, Marie Ferdinand-Harris) 1:00 TX (Dirk Nowitzki, Kenny Smith, Becky Hammon) 1:28 Sac (Tyreke Evans, Chris Webber, Nicole Powell) 1:46 Atl (Joe Johnson, Steve Smith, Angel McCoughtry) 1:47 Finals TX 0:34.3 LA 0:55.2 Skills Competition (obstacle course dribbling, shooting, passing; timed event) [Russell Westbrook (OKC) replaced the injured Derrick Rose (Chi)] 1st round (top 2 advance) Deron Williams (Uta) 34.1 seconds Steve Nash (Pho) 35.0 seconds Brandon Jennings (Mil) 35.7 seconds Russell Westbrook (OKC) 44.1 seconds Finals Steve Nash (Pho) 29.9 seconds Deron Williams (Uta) 37.9 seconds 3-point Shootout (5 racks of 5 balls - 4 worth 1 point, 1 worth 2 points) 1st Round (top 3 advance) Stephen Curry (GS) 18 Chauncey Billups (Den) 17 Paul Pierce (Bos) 17 Daequan Cook (Mia) 15 Danilo Gallinari (NY) 15 Channing Frye (Pho) 13 Finals Paul Pierce (Bos) 20 Stephen Curry (GS) 17 Chauncey Billups (Den) 14 Slam Dunk Contest (2 dunks each round) [you try until you make one for 2 minutes, then 2 attempts to make 1] 1st Round (top 2 advance) (score=total, 5 judges give points) Demar DeRozan (Tor) 42 50* = 92 Nate Robinson (NY) 44 45 = 89 Shannon Brown (LAL) 37 41 = 78 Gerald Wallace (Cha) 38 40 = 78 *teammate tossed ball off side of backboard and DeRozan caught it and windmilled home Finals (2 dunks, fan voting (text messaging)) Nate Robinson (NY) 51% Demar DeRozan (Tor) 49% Robinson's 2nd dunk: toss the ball off the glass and brought ball down to his knees and then 2-hand over the head dunk [Besides the 2 dunks mentioned, the dunks were fairly blah and a disappointing contest.] Sunday, February 14 11:00 am Legends Brunch NBATV 7:00 All-Star Game TNT ---- Patricia Bender pbender@eskimo.com For NBA stuff: http://www.eskimo.com/~pbender/index.html For Mavs stuff: http://www.eskimo.com/~pbender/mavs.html