NBA Sprite Slam Dunk Contest 2010 Recap

New York's Nate Robinson is the NBA's first three-time Sprite Slam Dunk champion.

Nate Robinson tends to give fans a little something extra.

He has vaulted over 6-foot-11 Dwight Howard and donned an all-green New York Knicks uniform with green shoes as part of his All-Star dunk contest routines.

So it should have come as no surprise when he grabbed a pair of blue pompons from a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader Saturday night inside American Airlines Center and thrust them into the air to celebrate his final dunk.

Robinson's pass off the backboard for a double-pump reverse dunk helped the 5-foot-9 dynamo defend his title and become the first three-time dunk contest champion after edging Toronto's DeMar DeRozan with 51% of fan voting via text messaging and the Internet.

"I knew I had to try to do dunks I haven't done before and try and spice it up a little bit," Robinson said in an on-court interview.

Did he consider dunking over the cheerleaders?

"They were way too beautiful for that," said Robinson, who said he didn't anticipate going for a fourth title.

DeRozan thrilled the crowd in the final round when he leaped over Toronto teammate Sonny Weems and took a pass off the backboard for a one-handed dunk. The former Compton High and USC star's other attempt in the final was a two-handed windmill.

"Going up against somebody like Nate who's small and doing the things he's doing, it's hard to beat that," DeRozan said.

DeRozan earned a perfect score from the judges in the first round when he took a pass from Weems off the side of the backboard, caught the ball on one side of the rim and dunked on the other.

Even an assist from Kobe Bryant wasn't enough to propel Lakers guard Shannon Brown past the first round. Bryant fed Brown with an alley-oop pass for a one-handed, left-handed jam that earned Brown 41 points from the judges.

"I think I could have done better," Brown said, "but if you look at the replay I was up in the air pretty high."

Boston forward Paul Pierce won the three-point shooting competition when he made 15 of 25 shots in the final round, including all five "money balls," to finish with 20 points. Golden State's Stephen Curry had 17 points and Denver's Chauncey Billups had 14 points in the final round.

Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant defended his title in the H-O-R-S-E competition after defeating Boston guard Rajon Rondo in a three-point shootout.

Less than 24 hours after participating in the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Phoenix guard Steve Nash won the skills challenge with a time of 29.9 seconds in the final round, edging Utah's Deron Williams.

Alluding to his lack of sleep, Nash quipped that "it makes it OK when you win a resume-builder like this."

In the shooting stars competition, the Team Texas contingent of Dallas forward Dirk Nowitzki, former Houston guard Kenny Smith and Becky Hammon of the WNBA's San Antonio Silver Stars beat Team Los Angeles when Nowitzki made a shot from near midcourt 34.3 seconds into the final round.

The Lakers' Pau Gasol made his team's half-court shot at 55.2 seconds.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• nba
• highlights
• 2010
• slam
• dunk
• contest

[studentuppal]

shannon brown that nigga has jump but no skill

[Jackie95728]

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NBA Sprite Slam Dunk Contest 2010 Recap gudrkkoa pemfzgsaa #NBABlake

[Templariusz86]

second

[TREGG69]

Second... this dunk comp was shit

[sabpwns]

first