Last Week Around the -ISTs
Schieffer's Out of Gov Race
![True Stories Can Be Stranger Than Fiction [Extra Extra ]](http://austinist.com/assets_c/2009/01/nightskyline-thumb-110x110-53663.jpg)
True Stories Can Be Stranger Than Fiction [Extra Extra ]
On Saturday, Austinist rolled down 71 and I-10 to Houston for NBA All-Star Weekend. Our seats could only be described as nosebleed-arific, but hey, we got to go.
The event started swimmingly when a Tony Parker-led Spurs team won the jump-shooting contest over a Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson tandem. The next event, the skills contest, featured the brightest stars of Saturday evening (with LeBron, Dwayne Wade, and Steve Nash all participating), but we nearly had a heart attack when they announced that an entire arena section would each win a PSP if LeBron won the event, then picked the section right next to us. Man, we cannot even tell you how loudly we yelled for LeBron to lose after being passed over for such prime swag. Besides, he lost to Wade anyway, so we should learn to be nicer.
The biggies of Saturday were the 3-point shootout and the slam dunk contest. The 3-point event featured two Dallas Mavericks, but strangely omitted San Antonio's Bruce Bowen, the NBA's #2 most accurate shooter from long range. The 3-point contest itself was low on thrills due to some poor candidate selection, but Mavs forward Dirk Nowitzki surprised everyone by becoming the first 7-footer to ever win the event.
In case you didn't catch it last year, the dunk contest has returned in a major way.
This year's dunks were incredible, but none more so than the behind the backboard number by Philadelphia's Andre Igoudala. The young Sixer actually had Allen Iverson throw a lob pass off the back of the backboard, which he caught, windmilled, and stuffed while ducking under the glass. It was insane, and must be seen to be believed. The Knicks' Nate Robinson answered back by jumping competely over NBA legend Spud Webb for a dunk. Completely. Over. Him. Then Igoudala threw a pass in the air, caught it behind his back without looking, and windmilled again for the 3rd amazing dunk of the night. These truly perfect moments were completely destroyed by the panel of Houston dunk judges, who clearly wanted Robinson to win and kept knocking points off of Igoudala's score to keep Robinson in the game. The entire crowd actually booed when Robinson was named champ, and many walked away feeling that the five judges ruined the good time of 17,000 fans.
All in all, All-Star Saturday Night was a great time, but we still can't believe the way the fix was in on the dunk contest. We know who won, Andre...see you next year.
Photo via NBA.com. The NBA regular season resumes tonight.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
the robinson victory made nique v. jordan in 87 look like gorev. bush..or something.
and him getting a thousand chances to make two dunks his ridiculous.
yeah, iguodala got shafted