Orlando (Florida), Feb 26 (IANS) Utah’s Jeremy Evans won the Slam Dunk Contest at the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) All-Star Saturday night with a support of 29 percent text message votes from three million fans. Timberwolves’ power forward Kevin Love beat Oklahoma City star Kevin Durant to win the 3-Point Shootout in a 17-14 tie-breaker.
Evans, who got into the competition as a replacement for injured New York guard Iman Shumpert, earned the win over Houston’s Chase Budinger, Indiana’s Paul George and Minnesota’s Derrick Williams.
Evans dunked with a camera on his head, dunked two basketballs while jumping over a seated assistant and then donned a Karl Malone jersey while dunking over mailman-dressed comedian Kevin Hart, Xinhua reported.
This year’s contest lasted three rounds, but the four participants had only two minutes per round to complete a single dunk.
This was the first year that fans had total control of voting, a major change from past competitions.
San Antonio point guard Tony Parker then won the Skills Competition. Park’s time of 32.8 in the final run on the obstacle course was better than Boston’s Rajon Rondo (34.6) and New Jersey’s Deron Williams (41.4), who needed five attempts to bury the top of key shot.
Team New York had the touch from the outside and won the Shooting Stars event. Former Knicks star Allan Houston nailed his third attempt at a half-court shot to give his team consisting of current Knicks guard Landry Fields and Cappie Pondexter of the WNBA’s New York Liberty the victory.