All-Star notebook

LAS VEGAS -- Say this much for Saturday's All-Star Slam Dunk Contest. It was creative.

Gerald Green's " Dee Brown Tribute." Nate Robinson's " Statue of Liberty." Dwight Howard's "Sticker."

This year's Slam Dunk might not have been the greatest. It sort of flickered out at the end like a broken Vegas neon sign, thanks in large part to Robinson's decision to test the limits of the Nate Robinson Rule.

But the first round at least was fun, amusing the Thomas & Mack Center crowd of 15,000 with some highly-imaginative efforts.

While Green and Robinson made it to the finals, Howard had probably the most memorable dunk of the night. Taking a lob pass from teammate Jameer Nelson, the 6-11 Magic forward leaped high and placed a sticker on the backboard with his left hand while jamming the ball home with his right. For comic effect, Nelson then pulled out a tape measure to reveal the sticker had been placed at 12'6".

It was a creative end run around the rules for Howard, who had unsuccessfully lobbied the NBA to allow him to raise the rim to 12 feet for one of his dunks in the contest.

Green, the Celtics' 6-8 forward, dazzled the crowd by donning a Dee Brown No. 7 jersey, pumping up his sneakers and slamming over Robinson -- after first producing a cardboard cutout of the diminutive Knicks guard.

Robinson, meanwhile, paid tribute to his New York team by executing a hoops version of the Statue of Liberty play. With teammate David Lee standing under the basket with the ball over his head, the 5-foot-9 Robinson ran in, leaped, took the ball out of Lee's hand and crammed home a reverse dunk.

Who says we've seen all the dunks, and that there aren't any more new ways to put a ball through a hoop?

Thanks to Robinson, Green and Howard, the Dunk still had some funk Saturday night. As a result, it will probably get to live at least another year.