Love out duels Durant to win the 2012 Foot Locker Three-Point Contest

Kevin Love is the only winner of the Three-Point Contest whose three-point shooting is his second skill.

Well, at the end of Saturday at All-Star Weekend, his outside technique was confirmed and awarded. Love is the strangest of power forwards, someone who can change a game either in the paint or beyond the arc, someone who rebounds with abandon but also has the touch of a diamond-cutter from deep.

He had to survive two tiebreakers to do it. He beat the hometown favorite, Ryan Anderson; former three-point contest winner James Jones; Anthony Morrow, who wore a jersey honoring the late Drazen Petrovic; and then out-pointed Kevin Durant, a top-three NBA scorer. And he did this while bringing the lowest three-point percentage of all the contestants, which meant nothing on this night.



Spurs' Parker takes the 2012 Skills Challenge competition

Tony Parker, a reserve on the Western Conference squad for the main event tonight, clocked the fastest time, 29.2 seconds, in the first round of the obstacle course that requires a chest pass and a bounce pass through a target, a shot from the top of the key and an outlet pass before finishing with a dunk or layup. He was followed by Deron Williams (28.3 seconds), Rajon Rondo and John Wall (32.8), Russell Westbrook (33.8) and Kyrie Irving (42.2), eliminating Westbrook and Irving while forcing Rondo and Wall into an extra run as a tiebreaker to determine the third finalist. Rondo easily won that slalom.

Once in the last round, Parker clocked 32.8 seconds with a circuit clean of mistakes other than needing a second bounce pass. Rondo was second at 34.6 and Williams third with 41.4.



Team New York wins 2012 Haier Shooting Stars competition

Usually, the Haier Shooting Stars competition at All-Star Saturday Night comes down to the half-court shot. But things were different this year, as Team New York won its first Shooting Stars title with an efficient performance through the first five shots.

And by the way, Allan Houston, who hasn't played an NBA game in over seven years, can still stroke it. Houston hit the half-court shot in both rounds for New York, which recorded the two best times of the competition, 38.7 seconds in the first round and 37.3 in the final.

The Liberty's Cappie Pondexter was 4-for-4 on shots from the right side and right baseline. Houston was 4-for-6 on shots from the left elbow and 3-point line. And Landry Fields was 2-for-4 on 3-pointers from the top.



Evans wins 2012 Sprite Slam Dunk

A relative unknown and former D-Leaguer, the Utah Jazz's Jeremy Evans won the 2012 Sprite Slam Dunk contest, defeating Houston's Chase Budinger in a tight race that included 4 million voters on NBA.com deciding the champion rather than a panel of judges.

Evans collected 29 percent of the fan vote to Budinger's 28 percent, instantly making a name for himself after not even being an original invitee.

He was a last-minute replacement for New York Knicks guard Iman Shumpert, practiced three hours, completed a two-ball dunk in which he jumped over Jazz teammate Gordon Hayward, who was sitting in a chair, for his most notable dunk of the night.

He seemed genuinely shocked when TNT's Cheryl Miller announced him as the winner over Budinger, Indiana's Paul George and Minnesota's Derrick Williams.