Diminutive New York Knicks guard Nate Robinson beat defending champion Dwight Howard of Orlando in an electrifying National Basketball Association slam dunk contest in Phoenix on Saturday, winning 52 percent of fans' votes.
![Nate Robinson of the New York Knicks jumps over Orlando's Dwight Howard during the slam dunk contest at NBA All-Star Weekend in Phoenix. He won the event. [Shanghai Daily]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20090216/000802aa2f490b0308da11.jpg "Nate Robinson of the New York Knicks jumps over Orlando's Dwight Howard during the slam dunk contest at NBA All-Star Weekend in Phoenix. He won the event. [Shanghai Daily]") |
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Nate Robinson of the New York Knicks jumps over Orlando's Dwight Howard during the slam dunk contest at NBA All-Star Weekend in Phoenix. He won the event. [Shanghai Daily] |
Clad in an all-green Knicks uniform with green shoes, Robinson used Howard as a prop in the final round, springboarding over the 2.11-meter center to jam.
"Dwight was a great sport letting me dunk over him," said Robinson, who also won in 2006.
Howard, who scored a perfect 50 on both of his first-round dunks, performed the most theatrical dunk of the night in the first round.
He disappeared into a phone booth just off the court, emerging with a Superman cape. Howard waved his arms to the crowd as a 3.4-meter basket was wheeled onto the floor. Howard took a bounce pass from teammate Jameer Nelson and tomahawked a dunk as US Airways Center exploded.
Portland's Rudy Fernandez and Denver's J.R. Smith were eliminated in the first round.
Miami's Daequan Cook won the 3-Point Shootout from Orlando's Rashard Lewis and ended Jason Kapono's two-year run as champion.
When the long-distance contest went to overtime, Cook posted the best round of the contest with 19 points.
Lewis sputtered in the third session, missing his first 11 shots to end on seven points.
Cook had forced overtime by hitting his final four shots in the second round of the six-man competition. Toronto's Kapono came up one point short in the second round.
Chicago's Derrick Rose capped his Skills Challenge victory with a double-pump reverse dunk. Rose beat New Jersey's Devin Harris in the final, navigating the obstacle course consisting of dribbling, passing and shooting stations in 35.3 seconds, 4.4 seconds faster than Harris.
(Agencies via Shanghai Daily February 16, 2009)
