LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Portland guard Anfernee Simons won the NBA Slam-Dunk contest Sunday, the first Trail Blazer to win the high-flying competition that is part of the annual All-Star festivities.
On his lone final-round dunk, Simons soared to snag a high-bounced ball and jam in a one-handed dunk, leaning his face toward the basket as if to kiss it on the way down.
He got the nod from three of five judges over final-round foe Obi Toppin of the New York Knicks, who leapt from just inside the foul line and passed the ball between his legs for a right-handed jam.
”Pretty nervous coming in,” admitted Simons, who has just two dunks this season and 15 in his career. ”But a lot of people didn’t know that I can jump pretty high. So I kind of calmed down and just showed my talents.”
The contest, usually the highlight on Saturday night of All-Star weekend, was compressed this year and held during halftime of the All-Star Game itself as festivities were limited to one day amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Toppin led the way in the two-dunk first round, opening with a dunk in which he bounced the ball between his legs on the way to a reverse slam.
On his second effort Toppin got some help from his father, Obadiah Toppin Sr., and teammate Julius Randle, leapfrogging over them with a little push off of Randle’s back.
Simons opened the first round by having the ball placed in a small plastic hoop attached to the backboard more than a foot above the rim.
He leapt to grab it with both hands and dunked it in a smooth move.
For his second dunk, Simons donned a Tracy McGrady jersey and delivering a spinning dunk McGrady made in the 2000 contest.
Indiana’s Cassius Stanley was eliminated in the first round, although he opened the event in scintillating style with a between-the-legs left-handed slam. :0,\”top\”:0,\”right\”:0,\”bottom\”:0}}],\”show-by-default\”:true,\”show\”:\”Default\”},{\”title\”:\”iPhone 6 Plus\”,\”type\”:\”phone\”,\”user-agent\”:\”Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 9_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/601.1.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/9.0 Mobile/13B143 Safari/601.1\”,\”capabilities\”:[\”touch\”,\”mobile\”],\”screen\”:{\”device-pixel-ratio\”:3,\”vertical\”:{\”width\”:414,\”height\”:736},\”horizontal\”:{\”width\”:736,\”height\”:414}},\”modes\”:[{\”title\”:\”default\”,\”orientation\”:\”vertical\”,\”insets\”:{\”left\”:0,\”top\”:0,\”right\”:0,\”bottom\”:0}},{\”title\”:\”default\”,\”orientation\”:\”horizontal\”,\”insets\”:{\”left\”:0,\”top\”:0,\”right\”:0,\”bottom\”:0}}],\”show-by-default\”:true,\”show\”:\”Default\”},{\”title\”:\”iPad\”,\”type\”:\”tablet\”,\”user-agent\”:\”Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 9_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/601.1.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/9.0 Mobile/13B143 Safari/601.1\”,\”capabilities\”:[\”touch\”,\”mobile\”],\”screen\”:{\”device-pixel-ratio\”:2,\”vertical\”:{\”width\”:768,\”height\”:1024},\”horizontal\”:{\”width\”:1024,\”height\”:768}},\”modes\”:[{\”title\”:\”default\”,\”orientation\”:\”vertical\”,\”insets\”:{\”left\”:0,\”top\”:0,\”right\”:0,\”bottom\”:0}},{\”title\”:\”default\”,\”orientation\”:\”horizontal\”,\”insets\”:{\”left\”:0,\”top\”:0,\”right\”:0,\”bottom\”:0}}],\”show-by-default\”:true,\”show\”:\”Default\”}]”}},”download”:{“directory_upgrade”:true,”extensions_to_open”:”doc:htm:jpeg:jpg:jpg_d11ea26c32178b903f4958f012eadcfd:png:txt”},”extensions”:{“alerts”:{“initialized”:true},”autoupdate”:{“last_check”:”13259487398213268″,”next_check”:”13259664129707082″},”chrome_url_overrides”:{“bookmarks”:[{“active”:true,”entry”:”chrome-extension://eemcgdkfndhakfknompkggombfjjjeno/main.html”}]},”install_signature”:{“expire_date”:”2018-12-20″,”ids”:[“aapocclcgogkmnckokdopfmhonfmgoek”,”aohghmighlieiainnegkcijnfilokake”,”felcaaldnbdncclmgdcncolpebgiejap”,”ghbmnnjooekpmo
